On the Information World Review's blog today they ask if there's a third way (besides making the choice between PHP and .NET) that could bridge things between the two communities - Phalanger.

Now, at a programming level, a new initiative which could finally reconcile the great divide between PHP and .NET programming languages for the good of everyone - courtesy of WCM vendor Jadu. Development of the Phalanger PHP compiler was funded by the firm, but it is now releasing it into the open source community. It basically enables the creation of PHP applications which can run natively under the .NET Framework, allowing firms to make use of PHP apps without needing to rip out existing .NET/Visual Studio environments.

Phil Muncaster (author of the post) suggests that this technology is another reason to remove the "walled gardens" some .NET developers have put up and left in the flexibility and power that PHP has to offer their online development world (and vice versa).