I am currently working on an internet project for a large manufacturing company. You are not going to believe this, but they want me to do 2 versions of the same project.
One is on Linux using PHP & JSP with MySQL.
The other is in .Net using SQL Server.
I tried to explain that I could do one version of the PHP/JSP using Apache and Tomcat which would then be able to be run on both OS's, but they would not listen to it ... some "consultant" talked them into this. Luckily, I could use the same HTML for both projects, but it's still a nightmare doing this thing twice.
Talk about a waste of money. Ever hear of this being done before?
Nope thats a first for me, do it one and do it right and it should not matter what environment you want to put it on..
You could use .NET for both too, since the server side would do all the processing then send the client the HTML for display. It might require some editing of your machine.config or web.config files, but by default you'd be supporting the largest market share browser IE while not losing much if any compatibility with the rarer browser breeds. As far as having to build 2 completley different back ends? Insane, that's the whole reason you have web applications, to avoid specific client requirements.