As someone who has developed on the MS platform almost exclusively for 8 years, I can say this: I’d be MUCH happier if I never had to look at another piece of C# code. I’ve worked with both professionally but I’ve been in a .NET shop the longest. Having seen both sides, I’d choose open source over Microsoft.
“There’s nothing in between. No middle ground. Why does it have to be an all or nothing proposition?”
Jeff, are you really on the middle ground? All of your articles seem blisteringly pro-Microsoft and anti-anything else. That makes this article sound hypocritical because in the past, you’ve been very quick to discount anything that isn’t from your own camp.
I could not agree more with this blog entry. For some reason that I cannot comprehend, majority of people are either against MS technologies or against non-MS technologies. This is so dumb. And that talk about open source vs Microsoft, my goodness. I am developing with C# 99% of my time and for majority of my tasks I use only open source software. I just cannot understand how choosing one eliminates the other. And having such a diverse environment in software world only helps. Each platform competes and strives to be better and excel above all. In the end, we, developers, win.
I think the only thing that hurts the community now more than ever is the die hard MS only people who due to their own laziness choose to ignore everything else and advocate their lifestyle to the rest. If we can eliminate those, we are in good shape.
I am still confused with this notion that you are either MS or open source developer. So stupid, you can and should be both.
PS. I cannot believe people at the MIX couldn’t recognize Miguel or know the name. I mean common, where do you live, in the moon?
It’s a little nave, in my opinion, to think of Microsoft as a benevolent dictator. Microsoft creates and cannibalizes markets at an astonishing rate, giving developers the tools and technologies they need to be inventive… and then turning around and competing with them when the market shows promise. They’ve slowly expanded into nearly every technology arena, threatening the very developers they proclaim to love and support.
And yet most of us have little choice. The vast majority of commercial software developers must target MS operating systems to have a chance at success. Until the monopolistic cycle is broken, there is little choice in the matter. Microsoft has successfully seized control of the playing field.
How’s this for blowing people’s minds: I like to develop open source software for Windows in unmanaged C++. Mostly because I like for just about everyone on the planet to be able to run my programs without needing to install fifty megs of “frameworks” and “libraries.”
Blind platform advocacy is weakness. Great tools speak for themselves. People cling to these movements to feel like they are a part of something. You look at a site like Slashdot, infested with blowhards who insist that using Microsoft technologies is morally evil. They fail to see that is merely a choice. I’ll be the first to say that a lot of MS software is merely average at best. But I don’t see substantially better efforts elsewhere.
As for non-Microsoft development tools, I have yet to be impressed by a Java IDE. Any IDE which needs to garbage collect (and thus preventing me from typing) doesn’t cut it in my book. I’m talking about you, IntelliJ. Eclipse is…average, at best. The Java development world fails to impress me overall, seems like a bunch of people inventing as many frameworks as they can. And don’t get me started on “application servers,” either.
I suppose the deciding factor on technologies for me is the Just Works factor. Can I do what I need to do with it quickly? Or do I have to place special libraries in certain places, tweak environment variables, and muddle through config files just to use it?
It seems like you’ve glazed over the bit where Gunderloy mentions Microsoft’s “increasing inclination to stifle competition through legal shenanigans”.
I’m a pretty die-hard Window’s developer, but I agree with him. It’s not so much about the tools, it’s more about associating yourself with a company that can be a bit shady.
To Jeff’s “pain” about all of the things he needs to install to get up and running, that pain is at least temporary as Visual Studio Orcas will have all of the updates rolled up into one so your installation list goes from 9 items to four items. You could also try Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 as well, but that depends on your tolerance for using the latest and greatest.
As for Mike, that’s too bad as I did enjoy the daily grind…
Interestingly, on the Mac side of things, there’s no dichotomy between “Mac devs” and “Open Source Devs.” Lots of Mac apps are based on open-source stuff, lots of Mac devs contribute to open source or have parts of their code open, and stuff like BSD and X11 makes it easy for open source devs to port to Macs.
it is interesting to me to read the “let’s exit the Microsoft building” experience from the hard-core Microsoft developer’s angle. i’m almost 50 and have coded for a living for 28+ years. i’ve written code in more dead languages hosted on dead platforms than most even know existed. i’ve done some Microsoft-centric development and a fair amount on Unix and an even bigger amount on VMS. i vastly prefer to develop on non-Microsoft platforms. but i digress…
as a user of Microsoft product, i have been a Windows user since Windows 3.1 was a new product. frankly, since the release of Windows 2000 the product has been going downhill in many ways. i do not think XP was so much better than 2K and Vista is just an atrocity from a user’s viewpoint. Vista wants tons more hardware, restricts my freedom and causes me to spend tons of cash on new software to replace stuff that currently works. add that to the fact that Windows is completely retarded with respect to handling external USB devices (can anyone explain to me why plugging in a 4th USB memory stick caused XP Pro to invalidate the drive letter of another stick using that drive letter and why the hell it wouldn’t restore that original drive letter after a reboot? oh yeah, that happened on a work PC where admin rights have been taken away so don’t bother telling me to change the drive letter back…)
no, the Microsoft platform has become a stupid, ugly caricature of a thing. it is bloated. it does retarded crap to USB drives. (can anyone clearly explain what the hell “delayed write failed” means and how to FIX IT???) with Vista, it is toadying up to hollywood and the RIAA and restricting my ability to use my PC.
no, i join those developers in “exiting the building”. Microsoft has lost its way and needs to refocus on what real users and developers need and want. every attempt they have made in that direction seems to me to be complete failures. XP is not easier to use. Vista certainly isn’t either. they hide essential processes from the user (like assigning drive letters when a USB stick gets plugged in – do we really need frickin’ drive letters anymore?) and make it nightmare to manage. as a developer, do you really want to have to go “back to school” every couple of years to re-learn how to program the beast? not me… i realized that when they rolled out VB.net and invalidated most of what i already knew in VB6. i still use VB6, they can keep .net…
but now that Ubuntu Linux runs on my laptop instead of XP Pro (that was a story to tell as well – how is it you can’t even tell whether the USB port is 1.1 or 2.0 from the system management tools so that you can fix the driver which complains EVERY time you plug in a USB disk?) i will turn my attentions to non-Microsoft development. i have all the reference books necessary to go back to my roots since the major interfaces aren’t significantly different from their Unix roots.
no, i applaud these guys for leaving. Linux, like OS X, just works better (as long as you have the hardware support necessary – some vendors won’t release hardware specs so that appropriate drivers can be written).
Microsoft needs to learn how to get lean and mean. reduce the resources required to run their crap; reduce the learning curve to be able to use it; eliminate the “relearn how to develop every 2” cycle. no, the monopolists of Redmond need to have a corporate near-death experience to re-learn who really pays for their existence.
This blog post is definitely following in that vein - i.e. discuss what the positives might be or at least highlight the debate we’re all having either privately to ourselves, our peers or publicly to strangers via our bogs
My perspective, when reading posts that suggest ‘the business case is compelling to work with Microsoft tools’, is that if it’s just business then you’re happy when things like this happen: http://weblogs.asp.net/edaniel/archive/2006/01/05/434548.aspx to protect your markets by playing the standards game - the most recent being the ODF / MSOOXML debacle.
I like the alt.net tag - I think that’s where we should all be now because we can’t trust anyone to look after developers when they’re such an important value proposition to these businesses - perhaps one of the few titans we might entertain will be Sun Microsystems as they’ve given more than anyone else and continue to do so - I like Sun much more than Microsoft today.
What I want to see is all those top business schools getting their under-grads producing term papers on how Microsoft needs to shake up its strategy and create a disruptive business that will be ready to support a new model, one that opens up everything Microsoft, to the world and then what will open source do? Improve it for a start, remove platform adoption, vendor lock-in, compatibility and interoperability problems/fears and allow the immense partner network Microsoft has stay in business at the short-term expense of Microsoft shareholders who are certainly far fewer than the community of Microsoft users - could Microsoft really understand that type of user-centric market positioning that empowers everyone? Perhaps not but it was fun thinking they might!
I don’t understand how you can see a bloated operating system like Microsoft Windows insert version here in any way of having better tools (for development of all things!) over free and open source operating systems which can run both Microsoft’s bloatware and BSD/GNU products.
Then again, you have been known to be a shill for Microsoft, as well as 90% of your “readership.”
I feel exactly the same way. I am a Microsoft consultant by day, but I want to learn the dark side (or is MS the sith? I forget) and promote open source in my spare time. A great example is a href="http://www.OpenAjax.Com"OpenAjax/a - I donated this domain for FREE to the Alliance to promote Openess in Ajax. Recently I found out that both Google and Microsoft joined OpenAjax, so now nearly all large companies are working together to promote Open Ajax
I can name a startup that uses MS tech. SMS.ac (http://www.sms.ac) is making a killing with text messaging. It is not just hype and dreams either, they are actually making money.
This is a rather odd post, Jeff, given that you often come across as a pretty dyed-in-the-wool Microsoft cheerleader (to me at least). I don’t intend that to be derogatory, but you just honestly seem to embrace and applaud Microsoft initiatives a little more eagerly and enthusiastically than most pragmatists.
I regular walk in the lands of all technologies, and I will say quite assuredly that the worst of the “our camp/your camp” warmongers are none other than the Microsoft faithful, fearful of change, desperately clutching onto whatever Microsoft fed them today and declaring it a revolution of innovation.
And it isn’t just about technology, and it’s naive to imagine that it is so. I use a plethora of great Microsoft technologies, and make a lot of money doing the same, but Microsoft’s agenda and conflict of interests are always on the top of my mind.
I’ve spent the better part of 20 years as what some would call a Microsoft bigot. I’d prefer to look at it as going where the market share is. I deliver business technology solutions with the stack my (and Microsoft’s) customer has chosen and the one that gave microsoft the market share to be considered a monopoly. I just like building solutions and don’t care whether Microsoft squashes competition as long as they do not squash innovation. I do not believe they do or can. Sure, they like any business are going to try to remain on top. If you don’t then you should live in a cave because that’s butters your bread.
As for whether or not any startups are using the .Net stack. Who cares. Microsoft and those of us supporting their stack, spent well over a decade building and proving their stack was adequate at the Enterprise level. Why do some now turn-around and claim they arent’ the best for a startup business that can’t afford to buy the Enterprise stability and scalability in the .Net stack? Microsoft makes its money and I make my living on market-share and if you lined up all the start-ups in a row there isn’t enough revenue to line up against even 1 or 2 of the largest Enterprises. Do we want rock-solid stability, scalability and frameworks for rapid development or do we want a platform thats cheap enough to enter a market? I know where I’d rather bet my mortgage payment
I don’t intend that to be derogatory, but you just honestly seem to embrace and applaud Microsoft initiatives a little more eagerly and enthusiastically than most pragmatists.
What evidence do you have to support this statement?
I like Microsoft. I said that at the top of this entry. But I’m far more skeptical than the typical MS developer in a typical MS shop. If you think I’m a cheerleader, you’re in for a very rude awakening.
