Is this common everywhere?
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
To answer the original question, all IT shops I've worked contain a certain number of java and open source fanboys. I find that those who really get stuck on what platform to perform their development upon lose sight of the fact that IT/IS departments exist to serve their business. So, here is some news for code zealots... business users could care less about what platform you've built your widget on as long as you provide a solution to their problem and as long as it meets their current requirements. So, if your users don't care about platform and if you have multiple options for development platforms then it really just comes down to cost. If you sit two developers down to provide the same solution with the same level of experience and one can do it in 4 weeks and the other can do it in 6 then you just identified the best option. I would argue that the platform independence, intropability, flexibility and maintainability that tools Microsoft provides cost less and are just as stable and perform just as well as any other platform out there. Only people who don't regularly use Microsoft tools typically argue with this point... which means they don't really know what they are missing. To address the cost factor up front before some naive coder tells me that Microsoft is too expensive I'll say this... on a development project what is the most expensive item on the project? Don't think too hard... really. Its the developer. The argument that, because Microsoft is a 'commercial' platform that it costs too much is misguided. If I can finish a project in 4 weeks and it takes you 6 then 2 weeks of salary just went down the drain. With at 2 weeks of salary saved, I could afford my MSDN subscription, buy pizza for the project team and take a short vacation. Then, because there is such a broad base of Microsoft skills, the person who comes in 2 years later should be able to update my code... and also, take a short vacation. In fact, I think I just need a vacation. Thanks for offering.
Joel Palmer Data Integration Engineer
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
There is actually a semi-valid reason for saying "because it's Microsoft". I used to be a Microsoft basher too. The reason was not so simple as "it doesn't have feature X". It was more nebulous - like Microsoft, through shady/illegal business practices, bullied their way into being ubiquitous, and then wasn't responsible enough to put out high-enough quality and secure software. They didn't respond well to user complaints or developer questions, because they didn't have to. This pissed a lot of people off. Yes, their C++ compiler had some bugs and implemented some things wrong, but it wasn't just application Y, it was a pattern that repeated. So it got a bad reputation. Having said all that, I've changed my opinion because I find Visual Studio 2008/2010, C# and .NET 3.5/4.0 a very good platform to develop with. They have made more of an effort to improve things. Consider .NET Entity Framework 4.0 improving on 3.0. I've read more than one story of a dev shop using NHibernate (open source) because EF 3.0 was insufficient, and then switching back to EF 4.0 because it was better than NHibernate.
modified on Thursday, October 28, 2010 1:55 PM
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
Dear Cesar: Welcome to the world of Computers !! Truth is what you see around you is very much alike anywhere over the world. I started as programmer in 1973. I am talking about FORTRAN, PL1, Pascal. At the time, we dispised guys programming in COBOL, because it was for BUSINESS !!!!-can you believe how misguided we were ????-and we considered ourselves-each of us- some sort of geniouses and the more difficult the programming language was, the better our ego felt, although it was really painful to master the language.At the time we were called systems engineers, because we really were.We had to deeply and in an integrated way analyze a system before we mechanized it/computerized it. We had to write the code entirely by ourselves, optimized it-memory capacity at the time was microscopic by today standards.The de-bugging process was entirely by hand, hundreds of pages spread on the floor, checking command line by line. Before you fall asleep with this boring/jurassic story, i will tell you that most of what you see around you, is about sore egos. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs-giant egos themselves-dared to make a lot of money simplifying computing enough to reach normal, standard people. Their genious showed when they saw the opportunity to change the world not through us, geeks, but through the common guy. And through the commom guy they reach the gold pot.....the BUSINESS OWNERS, who needed tools to simplify their common people employees and make them much more efficient or at least effective. I used to work for the government, military and private companies. I used to work in mainframes-IBM & Burroughs-AppleTalk,Ethernet, wireless, microwave, satellite, HF,Citrix, VPN networks, security-physical & electronic-, Business continuity & Recovery, telephony-PBX & IP-, Data Centers,Backup Ops.,university professor, etc. Therefore, i seen the same you see around. In my humble opinion, you have master the profession or are about to, when you said that using open source or commencial/propietary is a matter of choosing the right tool to solve the problem at hand in the most efficient way, which generally is the most economical way. Here lies the secret.....ECONOMIC WAY ! Bill Gates and Steve Jobs saw this clearly and made inmense fortunes in the process. The secret of our profession lies knowing several OS:Windows, Linux, OS. You should know several programming languages:assembly, C, Java, PHP. And you should be familiar with the Security, Network and Telecommunications fundamentals, if you want to fully understand the nature
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Dear Cesar: Welcome to the world of Computers !! Truth is what you see around you is very much alike anywhere over the world. I started as programmer in 1973. I am talking about FORTRAN, PL1, Pascal. At the time, we dispised guys programming in COBOL, because it was for BUSINESS !!!!-can you believe how misguided we were ????-and we considered ourselves-each of us- some sort of geniouses and the more difficult the programming language was, the better our ego felt, although it was really painful to master the language.At the time we were called systems engineers, because we really were.We had to deeply and in an integrated way analyze a system before we mechanized it/computerized it. We had to write the code entirely by ourselves, optimized it-memory capacity at the time was microscopic by today standards.The de-bugging process was entirely by hand, hundreds of pages spread on the floor, checking command line by line. Before you fall asleep with this boring/jurassic story, i will tell you that most of what you see around you, is about sore egos. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs-giant egos themselves-dared to make a lot of money simplifying computing enough to reach normal, standard people. Their genious showed when they saw the opportunity to change the world not through us, geeks, but through the common guy. And through the commom guy they reach the gold pot.....the BUSINESS OWNERS, who needed tools to simplify their common people employees and make them much more efficient or at least effective. I used to work for the government, military and private companies. I used to work in mainframes-IBM & Burroughs-AppleTalk,Ethernet, wireless, microwave, satellite, HF,Citrix, VPN networks, security-physical & electronic-, Business continuity & Recovery, telephony-PBX & IP-, Data Centers,Backup Ops.,university professor, etc. Therefore, i seen the same you see around. In my humble opinion, you have master the profession or are about to, when you said that using open source or commencial/propietary is a matter of choosing the right tool to solve the problem at hand in the most efficient way, which generally is the most economical way. Here lies the secret.....ECONOMIC WAY ! Bill Gates and Steve Jobs saw this clearly and made inmense fortunes in the process. The secret of our profession lies knowing several OS:Windows, Linux, OS. You should know several programming languages:assembly, C, Java, PHP. And you should be familiar with the Security, Network and Telecommunications fundamentals, if you want to fully understand the nature
Dante, your post is basically unreadable. It's like trying to figure out what's in a Word doc by reading it with Notepad. Just sayin', in case you want someone to ever pay attention to you....
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
It isn't so much that I hate Microsoft, as I hate buggy poorly written software that gives me no end of hassle. I also dislike paying exorbitant fees for same said software. If I'm given a choice between using two buggy poorly written software, I'll choose the one that is free. If one works dramatically better and costs only a little money, I'll often choose that. It really comes down to me being cheap for most things.
ragnaroknrol: Yes, but comparing a rabid wolverine gnawing on your face while stabbing you with a fountain pen to Vista is likely to make the wolverine look good, so it isn't exactly that big of a compliment.
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
I was one of those who disliked microsoft because it is microsoft. At the time I switched to linux, I switched for many reasons, top 2 are A. I didn't care for microsoft's business tactics. I don't support anything gates did with i.e. or the license agreement to sell microsoft products and I don't agree with ballmer, just don't like the corportate idiot. MS support was crappy, costly and useless. If you don't agree with the system, why support the system by using the products/giving them money and attention? B. microsoft technologies weren't even close to good enough, C# was still in v1 or v2. I tried v1 and didn't fall in love with it then. The microsoft API has always been wtf? I could never get used to it... I felt that it was really hacked together. Windows XP had just came around and I didn't like it, tired of the crap with it. The linux api was easier to deal with and felt more natural and easily understandable, none of the tools cost an arm and a leg, I had way more choices open to me on what I could do with linux. Linux's openness and the intelligence behind the tools and api and ease of learning (I learned to code on some old unix systems originally) was more to my style. I quickly found that with linux, I wasn't missing much, except games... and that's still true today. I just fell in love with it (and still love it to this day). Linux allows a startup to startup with less cash upfront, less time invested in learning (if you know unix and if you went to a good uni, you should understand it), less problems, less security overhead, less computational power required and scalability is awesome. Support is awesome also. These are the reasons became a "I hate microsh*t" and "windon't do *" person. It was a clear difference in philosophy's. The easiest way to deal with me was to just ignore me and let it go. After a quick rant I would just stop, I said my peace. I talk in past tense because today I'm back to using ms technologies and have fallen in love with c# v4, .NET and linq, but honestly I wouldn't use it in a professional project because they aren't that great for cross platform use. I like products that reach all the people, not some of the people (I prefer desktop development to web and phone development), for this, Qt is probably the best to reach everyone in *nix, windows and mac worlds (Java swig is a pain and annoying). In web (ui is cross platform by default), open source products again allow the more secure system and better use of resources (though just a quick note, I don't use php for
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Dante, your post is basically unreadable. It's like trying to figure out what's in a Word doc by reading it with Notepad. Just sayin', in case you want someone to ever pay attention to you....
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To answer the original question, all IT shops I've worked contain a certain number of java and open source fanboys. I find that those who really get stuck on what platform to perform their development upon lose sight of the fact that IT/IS departments exist to serve their business. So, here is some news for code zealots... business users could care less about what platform you've built your widget on as long as you provide a solution to their problem and as long as it meets their current requirements. So, if your users don't care about platform and if you have multiple options for development platforms then it really just comes down to cost. If you sit two developers down to provide the same solution with the same level of experience and one can do it in 4 weeks and the other can do it in 6 then you just identified the best option. I would argue that the platform independence, intropability, flexibility and maintainability that tools Microsoft provides cost less and are just as stable and perform just as well as any other platform out there. Only people who don't regularly use Microsoft tools typically argue with this point... which means they don't really know what they are missing. To address the cost factor up front before some naive coder tells me that Microsoft is too expensive I'll say this... on a development project what is the most expensive item on the project? Don't think too hard... really. Its the developer. The argument that, because Microsoft is a 'commercial' platform that it costs too much is misguided. If I can finish a project in 4 weeks and it takes you 6 then 2 weeks of salary just went down the drain. With at 2 weeks of salary saved, I could afford my MSDN subscription, buy pizza for the project team and take a short vacation. Then, because there is such a broad base of Microsoft skills, the person who comes in 2 years later should be able to update my code... and also, take a short vacation. In fact, I think I just need a vacation. Thanks for offering.
Joel Palmer Data Integration Engineer
Joel@Novaspect wrote:
I would argue that the platform independence, intropability, flexibility and maintainability that tools Microsoft provides cost less and are just as stable and perform just as well as any other platform out there. Only people who don't regularly use Microsoft tools typically argue with this point... which means they don't really know what they are missing. To address the cost factor up front before some naive coder tells me that Microsoft is too expensive I'll say this... on a development project what is the most expensive item on the project? Don't think too hard... really. Its the developer. The argument that, because Microsoft is a 'commercial' platform that it costs too much is misguided. If I can finish a project in 4 weeks and it takes you 6 then 2 weeks of salary just went down the drain. With at 2 weeks of salary saved, I could afford my MSDN subscription, buy pizza for the project team and take a short vacation. Then, because there is such a broad base of Microsoft skills, the person who comes in 2 years later should be able to update my code... and also, take a short vacation.
Excellent words. Thanks.
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also Handwriting Recognition Revisited: Kernel Support Vector Machines
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Joel@Novaspect wrote:
I would argue that the platform independence, intropability, flexibility and maintainability that tools Microsoft provides cost less and are just as stable and perform just as well as any other platform out there. Only people who don't regularly use Microsoft tools typically argue with this point... which means they don't really know what they are missing. To address the cost factor up front before some naive coder tells me that Microsoft is too expensive I'll say this... on a development project what is the most expensive item on the project? Don't think too hard... really. Its the developer. The argument that, because Microsoft is a 'commercial' platform that it costs too much is misguided. If I can finish a project in 4 weeks and it takes you 6 then 2 weeks of salary just went down the drain. With at 2 weeks of salary saved, I could afford my MSDN subscription, buy pizza for the project team and take a short vacation. Then, because there is such a broad base of Microsoft skills, the person who comes in 2 years later should be able to update my code... and also, take a short vacation.
Excellent words. Thanks.
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also Handwriting Recognition Revisited: Kernel Support Vector Machines
Sorry, Joel's on vacation right now and cannot respond to this message. :-D
Joel Palmer Data Integration Engineer
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Jeff: My apoligies for the writting style or lack thereoff k Thank you very much for the advice k i will re-do it k BT. Dante
Must... find... white-space.
Joel Palmer Data Integration Engineer
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My question is this: why is there still such a disconnect between the academic world and the professional world? I work with C# and .NET all day long. That's not to say I love .NET all of the time, but it does get the job done quite often. It puts food on the table for my family. I've taken CS classes at two different universities. One university focused more on the practical and business side of programming. The other was very academic. I understand the importance of learning assembly and other such topics in academics, but the "software development" class I took was so mathematical and so far away from anything I ever do in the professional world. I say that because I was working full-time doing development while taking this class. Why haven't some CS departments put more focus on the professional aspect of development?
At my university (20 years ago)... Computer Science was a B.S. (science) degree that with a few extra electives could launch an Engineering (P.E.) career path. Data structures, OS design, compiler design, language design/parsing, etc. MIS was a B.A. (business) degree, Basic, COBOL, using IBM mainframes, systems administration, etc. 2 very different approaches. I think the same still holds true at my alma mater today. Current day, I work with a few, technical C.S. style people that support a bunch of MIS programmers. Some of the MIS code is not the most efficient, but until something REALLY needs tuning, why worry about it.
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Dante, your post is basically unreadable. It's like trying to figure out what's in a Word doc by reading it with Notepad. Just sayin', in case you want someone to ever pay attention to you....
Dear Cesar: Welcome to the world of Computers…truth is what you see around you is very much alike anywhere over the world. I started as programmer in 1973. I am talking about FORTRAN, PL1, and Pascal. At the time, we despised guys programming in COBOL, because it was for BUSINESS… can you believe how misguided we were???? We considered ourselves-each of us- some sort of geniuses and the more difficult the programming language was, the better our ego felt, although it was really painful to master the language. At the time we were called systems engineers, because we really were. We had to deeply and in an integrated way analyze a system before we mechanized it/computerized it. We had to write the code entirely by ourselves and super-optimized it, because memory capacity at the time was microscopic by today standards. The de-bugging process was entirely by hand, hundreds of pages spread on the floor, checking command line by line. Before you fall asleep with this boring story, i will tell you that most of what you see around you, is about sore egos. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, giant egos themselves, dared to make a lot of money simplifying computing enough to reach normal, standard people. Their genius showed when they saw the opportunity to change the world not through us, geeks, but through the common guy. Through the common guy they reach the gold pot.....the BUSINESS OWNERS, who needed tools to simplify their common people employees and make them much more efficient or at least effective. I used to work for the government, military and private companies. Therefore, i seen the same you see around. In my humble opinion, you have master the profession or are about to, when you said that using open source or commencial/propietary is a matter of choosing the right tool to solve the problem at hand in the most efficient way, which generally is the most economical way. Here lies the secret..... ECONOMIC WAY ! Bill Gates and Steve Jobs saw this clearly and made immense fortunes in the process. The secret of our profession lies knowing several OS: Windows, Linux and OSx. You should know several programming languages: assembly, C, Java, and PHP. You should be familiar with the Security, Network and Telecommunications fundamentals, if you want to fully understand the nature of Cyber Space.....the NEW WORLD. My people always managed themselves by the " La forza dei fatti " -The force of the facts saying. It means we cannot deny the fact that proprietary code-Microsoft & Appl
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Must... find... white-space.
Joel Palmer Data Integration Engineer
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
César de Souza wrote:
But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attended our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be?
Actually I prefer the first reason rather than the others. Why? Because, in my experience, when I delve into the other reasons I find that they are not in fact back by any real business need. Nor any objective data of any sort. And it is very seldom that the proponents of any technology can even cite a real subjective point that might differentiate different solutions. Conversely the first reason is by its very nature simply one of subjective preference. It is similar to someone claiming that they 'like' VI or a particular IDE versus someone claiming that they are more 'productive' with one of those. In my experience I have never encountered a major platform/language decision that was not made based on personal bias excluding two cases. And both of those cases were driven by non-technical reasons (good ones in that there was an explicit business need.)
César de Souza wrote:
I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people.
Presumably simply because you like it rather than due to any objective criteria.
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Well, this is one my first posts here in the Lounge... I just wanted to expose a situation I find very often. And rant a little. Oh well. First, a disclaimer: I am currently working as a software developer in a mostly-Linux shop. We develop and maintain mission-critical systems for telecommunications. Naturally, most of work is done in C++ using vi and emacs in remote terminals. So I have no problems working with either C++, Linux, Windows or C# (which is my personal favorite). For me it is just a question of working with different tools to get the job done. But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attend our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be? By the way, in one of the most prestigiated universities here, students are supposed to know Linux and only Linux. They aren't even allowed to be creative in their user interfaces, because most of the exercises are corrected by an automated system which simply pass things to the input of a student's program and waits for an expected output. It is like if Linux and open-source software were the only truth they would need in life. For me, this whole anti-Microsoft, pro-free software fanatism is just ridiculous. I use free and open-source software, but I also use commercial ones. I actually develop free and open-source software, but I also work on a commercial one. There are people out there who thinks anything that comes from a commercial corporation is evil and should be avoided at all costs, even if this implies using sub-optimal software just because it is "libre". I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people. When they ask, they aren't really interested in the answer. They just get amused because, in their own closed mind, anything Microsoft must suck. So, does this happen in the rest of the world as well? How do you deal with it?
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also
I once worked for a MS Gold Certified Partner company that offered their clients the best from MS... however in the office, everyone from the Director of Technology down to the programmers talked about how much they love MAC and how much MS sucks. Som even sported a macbook with windows running in a vm (using parellels i think). When confronted, some would offer good reasons, however once we dive into the reasons, we'd discover that they are faux.. For example, i asked a very experienced dev what he thought of TFS. He gave me a list of bad things like no web portal, no revision graph, no reporting like burndown, ect.. then I showed him every single thing he said TFS does not have. My point is, even within the industry (and usually IT = smart), people had misconseptions and went along with the crowd simply due to their human nature (sociological patterns) rather than logic.
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And there is a good reason. Although, many of their tools and technologies are great most are designed with a technician and a 2 year life-cycle in mind. ADO.NET and data readers solved most business software problems related to database handling. Yet, since 2001, how many technologies have spewed forth and how many, "frameworks" have leapt off the page to make this trivial concept easier? Worse, how many are no longer supported or in favor? Students need to learn the fundamental concepts of how to develop, not which button to click. Systems need to be maintainable 10 years down the road. MS isn't stupid; they provide both but the anti-MS crowd, for good reason, see the technician half and frown.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
And there is a good reason. Although, many of their tools and technologies are great most are designed with a technician and a 2 year life-cycle in mind. ADO.NET and data readers solved most business software problems related to database handling. Yet, since 2001, how many technologies have spewed forth and how many, "frameworks" have leapt off the page to make this trivial concept easier? Worse, how many are no longer supported or in favor? Students need to learn the fundamental concepts of how to develop, not which button to click. Systems need to be maintainable 10 years down the road. MS isn't stupid; they provide both but the anti-MS crowd, for good reason, see the technician half and frown.
Not quite sure what you point is. However I can note that Java 1.3 was released only in the year 2000. Yet I don't expect to see any upgrades for it this year. And the tiobe chart reflects many new computer languages that come and just as rapidly go. None of those have anything to do with Microsoft. So could you provide something more specific than your general comments that fit within your 10 year timeline?
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It is a love and hate relationship with Microsoft. Its software is generally user friendly and easy to learn or to support. But they seem to have some fundamental issues that can't be resolved. Taking the Windows operating system as an example, it always takes too long to start and to shut down. This is the most important reason that many people in my corp switched to Mac. In terms of servers, I never see an IIS server running for a month without a reboot at least in my company.
TOMZ_KV
Tomz_KV wrote:
In terms of servers, I never see an IIS server running for a month without a reboot at least in my company.
I had a unix server one time that would do a cold boot if I ran a particular application. Conversely I have several MS servers whose only down time for two years has been when moving data centers (once.) From that limited experience I might conclude that all unix variants are trash and MS servers are stable as rocks. Or I might come to the different conclusion: 1. I do not have enough actual experience to generalize for all platforms for all use cases. 2. Platform software changes rapidly enough that a true determination now might not be relevant at all in 2 years time. Nor is it relevant 2 years ago and certainly not from 10 years ago. 3. Users have a significant impact on platform stability. 4. Actual usage has a significant impact on platform stability. 5. Attempting to control for all of the above factors to provide objective real data would be a significant undertaking. And it is probably impossible for an individual. And might not even be possible for a large organization.
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César de Souza wrote:
But the problem is: very often I find people who seems to be completely anti-Microsoft. They would refuse to use any Microsoft technology, and when questioned why, they would just reply: "Because it is from Microsoft". It would be OK if they said: "It didn't attended our needs", "It does not have feature X", or "we needed true platform independence" (which sometimes just isn't true, as platform independence is used only as a marketing feature). But the only reason I hear is that it was not even considered because "it was from Microsoft". How could that be?
Actually I prefer the first reason rather than the others. Why? Because, in my experience, when I delve into the other reasons I find that they are not in fact back by any real business need. Nor any objective data of any sort. And it is very seldom that the proponents of any technology can even cite a real subjective point that might differentiate different solutions. Conversely the first reason is by its very nature simply one of subjective preference. It is similar to someone claiming that they 'like' VI or a particular IDE versus someone claiming that they are more 'productive' with one of those. In my experience I have never encountered a major platform/language decision that was not made based on personal bias excluding two cases. And both of those cases were driven by non-technical reasons (good ones in that there was an explicit business need.)
César de Souza wrote:
I don't even dare anymore to explain why my preferred language is C# to those people.
Presumably simply because you like it rather than due to any objective criteria.
jschell wrote:
Presumably simply because you like it rather than due to any objective criteria.
Yes, because I like it. Because I like it and I like to share its features, share about how features such as lambda functions and LINQ makes my work productive. I actually love to explain the language details I like the most, and why I like those features the most. On a normal conversation, people may wish at least to try to understand your point of view. But the people I was referring to wouldn't even bother, because their mind would stop when they first heard the word "Microsoft".
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also Handwriting Recognition Revisited: Kernel Support Vector Machines
modified on Thursday, October 28, 2010 3:36 PM
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I am a Microsoft developer, and have been for 15 years because MS have always made it easy for me to do my job - develop great apps within a familiar environment, while enabling other developers to understand my work and get the support I need, when I need it. I have always found myself in extremely high demand especially in the larger corps such as banking in London. I, along with collegues like our systems running on MS solutions as they are the best all-in-one for what we need. .net offers a forced, high standard model of programming. How to deal with it: learn another programming language and earn less money and implement solutions that cost less or move on and earn more money, providing better solutions where you are appreciated as an MS developer. I believe the anti-MS thing is for those who can't afford MS, you pay for what you get in this world, they don't know what they are missing.
Westley Cooper-Thorn wrote:
I am a Microsoft developer, and have been for 15 years because MS have always made it easy for me to do my job - develop great apps within a familiar environment, while enabling other developers to understand my work and get the support I need, when I need it. I have always found myself in extremely high demand especially in the larger corps such as banking in London. ... How to deal with it: learn another programming language and earn less money and implement solutions that cost less or move on and earn more money, providing better solutions where you are appreciated as an MS developer.
In my experiencein the US, MS developers, as a group and across the board, will earn less than unix developers.
Westley Cooper-Thorn wrote:
I, along with collegues like our systems running on MS solutions as they are the best all-in-one for what we need. .net offers a forced, high standard model of programming.
Nothing but a subjective preference phrased to suggest that it is objective. If not then please provide that measured statistics that back it up. You can replace MS/.net in the above with almost any technical terms and find comments almost exactly the same in some forum.
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Unfortunately it is common everywhere. It is especially hypocritical when it comes from a Mac user, when that is the most closed platform out there. If the Mac platform 'won', and became dominant, 90% of hardware companies would be out of business! But, Linus Torvalds (yes, THAT Linus Torvalds) does not agree with the haters...just Google "Microsoft Hatred is a Disease". (Or, Google it with Bing!) The biggest issue is that many of the most vehement MS-haters haven't even touched the platform in 10 years, so they really have no place to talk about it. Microsoft have changed a lot just over the past few years, opening up, listening to the community, even releasing a lot of open source code. They have been slowly giving the detractors some of what they want...but it still doesn't make them happy. Nothing ever will. They are so completely closed minded. Isn't that amazing that these 'open-source, free-software' people are more closed minded than the Microsoft users? I mean, I am more than happy to use Linux (all my computers are dual-boot) and Ruby on Rails, or whatever, and try out all sorts of things in addition to coding in .Net and the MS platform. But these supposedly 'open' people have no interest in expanding their experience, and keep to a singular path. .Net 4 rocks. The MVC framework is a thing of beauty (in my opinion). But I'm also coding in Ruby, Python, Java, trying to learn new things all the time. I don't understand closed-mindedness on either side of the equation.
We live in a world operated by science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. --Carl Sagan
Alexander DiMauro wrote:
Microsoft have changed a lot just over the past few years, opening up, listening to the community, even releasing a lot of open source code. They have been slowly giving the detractors some of what they want...but it still doesn't make them happy. Nothing ever will. They are so completely closed minded.
I sincerely doubt that it entirely by choice. There are several major court ordered decisions that have had a serious impact on that. And it took repeated attempts to get to that point as well.