The majority of web projects in .NET are written with ASP.NET MVC/Core and EntityFramework with SQL Server. This seems odd to me, there are some fantastic alternatives that seem to be scarcely used. Everyone knows there is no such thing as a silver bullet, so let’s check out some alternatives. Exploring some common problems, we’ll take a look at NancyFX, Dapper, and Postgres, to help us solve them. We’ll be looking at these frameworks with a slightly twisted take on “The Blub Paradox”. How did I realise I was essentially a "blub programmer"? Why did I decide to look into Postgres and how I can use JavaScript effectively with it? What use is currying in F# and what difference does it makes to me? Let's step out of our comfort zones, and let's start looking up.