The Stack is the new Os debate

The other day I had the opportunity to be part of a small debate, on how the OS debates are moving towards to the stack. (LAMP, .NET, WAMP...). During the debate I argued that you don’t have to stick with a specific stack if you architect your layers correctly.

Even if you prefer a particular Stack, you should always develop in a way that you are not dependent to any layer (easier said than done i know). Now the most “easy” part to replace could be the OS, being Java, Php and .Net (with mono) platform independent. The web server could also be easy to replace. .Net (not mono) now can also be hosted in a different web server than IIS.

The database with a good persistence framework can also be considered an easy option to replace. Obviously, never having (or trying to not have) any business logic buried on your database.

Probably the most significant element when you choose a stack will be the framework / development language (.Net, J2EE, Php, Ruby on Rails). This can be definitely the most difficult one to replace, but a SOA will allow you also to interchange the elements of the traditional Business Logic, not tying you to a particular framework.

The presentation layer through composites applications should present those service consumers, enforcing the decoupling of the user interface and business logic layer.