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
Lots of people who have been in IT for a long time (for myself it's 20 years) have seen Microsoft at their worst. Their business practices and quality of software left a lot to be desired. Too many people have been burnt too many times by Microsoft, and that sticks around for a long time. They were also anti-open source and anti-linux and have only recently (partly) started turning the ship around. It's natural FLOSS and Linux fans to be very wary of them, they had (have?) good reason to be! I deal with it by agreeing with people, but say that some parts of the company are changing.
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I'm not trying to take sides, but have you ever considered that people can have different views on what's funny and not?
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HimanshuJoshi wrote:
Hey linux and opensource is the final answer to everything
So, Linux == 42 ?
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Henry Minute wrote:
MDL=>Moshu wrote: I would totally eradicate the monetary system from the face of this planet Interesting. How would that work for the elderly or infirm members of society?
Easy, in such a system they would have to be the food.
He said, "Boy I'm just old and lonely, But thank you for your concern, Here's wishing you a Happy New Year." I wished him one back in return.
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The hate for Micro$oft started that dark day when Gates accused all of us of being pirates (him selling of $4 of papertape for $400 was not piracy, but good business sense). It picked up speed when he branched out into OSes (that he bought from someone else for a song). Then it really became disgust as Windows running on top of DOS would check to see whose OS it was running on and in an incredible display of FUD would pop up the dialog box saying that running Windows on an OS other than MS-DOS could make it unstable. As though it was the fault of the OS that Windows was unstable... The years we had to suffer with the one line editor EDLIN did not end until Digital Research added a full screen editor to their DOS and finally forced Bill to spend some time and money upgrading their product. Followed by the days of WINTEL, when processes were made as inefficient as possible to force the sale of faster processors and more memory, which iterated until today. Standards? We don't need no stinkin' standards! We are the standard! And so began "Embrace, Expand, Extinguish" as the mindset for corporate dominance. I'll admit I like the dotNet environment, but it has taken them far too long to finally figure out how to write programs.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
BrainiacV wrote:
The hate for Micro**$**oft...
-1 on your geek points for the dollar sign in place of the S. You don't like Microsoft, that's fine, you're entitled, but at least be adult about it instead of hacking up the company's name like some script kiddie Linux fanatic.
Mike Poz
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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.
jschell wrote:
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.
What Microsoft was found guilt of used to be called "hard ball business practices" in the US. In my opinion there's too much "socialist" slant in the business world now. I'm sorry, but not all businesses are created equal, take Opera for example. Their browser is OK. JUST OK. It's not amazing, it doesn't signal the second coming of Christ, yet they whined to the EC about how they don't have a fare share of the browser market. That's pure bullcrap to me. If their product truly was worth using, they would have a larger user base. Look at Firefox, that browser went from basically being unknown to having a fairly substantial chunk of browser usage share. And yes, I did try Opera, it was just OK, nothing special and really not worth the time it took to download and install.
Mike Poz
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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
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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
Encourage this blinkered attitude. These ignorant bozos are your future competitors.
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How dare you! The days when we Mac users spent more time bashing you PC lusers for using ugly, underpowered machines, than actually using our Macs are long gone... :laugh:
Eduardo León
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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
Yes. I totally agree with César de Souza's point of view. Actually FOSS decreases the productivity of the quality software and whole software industry and ultimately the global economy. All Closed source software are not good but most are.
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Yes. I totally agree with César de Souza's point of view. Actually FOSS decreases the productivity of the quality software and whole software industry and ultimately the global economy. All Closed source software are not good but most are.
Shameer.123 wrote:
Yes. I totally agree with César de Souza's point of view. Actually FOSS decreases the productivity of the quality software and whole software industry and ultimately the global economy. All Closed source software are not good but most are.
Actually, this is not what I said. I never said FOSS was bad. It is just that fanaticism (of any kind) seems to turn anything that could be good into something bad. Cheers, César
Interested in Machine Learning in .NET? Check the Accord.NET Framework. See also Handwriting Recognition Revisited: Kernel Support Vector Machines
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well,microsoft is indeed a great company which promote the development of PC revolution.I am fond of products by microsoft,now,i am turning to linux because i wanna learn more and meet my job requirements. :)
Microsoft did NOT support the PC revolution, which was going strong without them. What they did was to simplify the PC revolution a bit by killing off competitors using illegal and unethical practices.
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BrainiacV wrote:
The hate for Micro**$**oft...
-1 on your geek points for the dollar sign in place of the S. You don't like Microsoft, that's fine, you're entitled, but at least be adult about it instead of hacking up the company's name like some script kiddie Linux fanatic.
Mike Poz
I give two bits about what my geek points are. I've been dealing with your God Gates since he lied to MITS (are you old enough to remember that?) that he had a BASIC interpreter and then stole university computer time to write it. Gates has never been a true believer, it has always been about the $$$. I'm just using the spelling he should have used.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
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jschell wrote:
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.
What Microsoft was found guilt of used to be called "hard ball business practices" in the US. In my opinion there's too much "socialist" slant in the business world now. I'm sorry, but not all businesses are created equal, take Opera for example. Their browser is OK. JUST OK. It's not amazing, it doesn't signal the second coming of Christ, yet they whined to the EC about how they don't have a fare share of the browser market. That's pure bullcrap to me. If their product truly was worth using, they would have a larger user base. Look at Firefox, that browser went from basically being unknown to having a fairly substantial chunk of browser usage share. And yes, I did try Opera, it was just OK, nothing special and really not worth the time it took to download and install.
Mike Poz
Yeah, Opera is not worth the time, especially since MSIE comes prepackaged in the OS. Why bother following standards when you can make them up as you go, knowing most users don't know you can have multiple browsers loaded and running. Careful, you might break something and once you lose MSIE, you're screwed.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
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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:
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.
I'd love to agree with you, but the bean counters I've always encountered all my career seem to think software is expensive and my time is "free". Suppose I propose purchasing a piece of software that would cut my development time by half. To to bean counter they still have to pay me for the whole time AND they have to pay for the software as well. Productivity is not something that shows up on the bottom line. Anymore I just buy the software/hardware myself and then submit a reimbursement request. I am no longer going to beat my head again a wall because management or a bean counter wants to plead poverty (while having the money to fly around the country and buying themselves company cars). Now they have to justify not paying me rather than me justifying why I need something. If I'm paying for it out of my own pocket, it is necessary and as cheap as possible, I cannot be accused of being a kid in a candy store with expense money.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
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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.
Subjective, Schnubjective. Of course you can replace the above text. I was sharing what I see as fact in my environment. Appreciated comments!
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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
If you think that's tough, try being a VB application developer.... I wrote my first program for money in 1979 for a Radioshak TRS80 - CPM Anyone remember that? Operating systems and languages come and go, it's all just tools and synatx. In my limited experience end users never give a single thought to the language or operating system, only the results. All the rest is insecure people defending what they "Know".
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Microsoft did NOT support the PC revolution, which was going strong without them. What they did was to simplify the PC revolution a bit by killing off competitors using illegal and unethical practices.
Bruce Patin wrote:
Microsoft did NOT support the PC revolution, which was going strong without them
I suspect that the "PC revolution" would have been far different if the underdog, which was in fact Microsoft at the time, had not managed to slip a minor clause into the contract with IBM concerning the OS that they were creating. The one that allowed them to sell the OS on computers from other vendors. Without that it is very likely that all vendors would be like Apple.
Bruce Patin wrote:
What they did was to simplify the PC revolution a bit by killing off competitors using illegal and unethical practices.
Obviously subjective nonsense. You must work for and look for jobs in a far, far different economy that I do. There are certainly tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of technologica companies that exist outside of Microsoft. You do in fact know which computer company is currently worth the most right? The one that does in fact maintain a strict monopoly over not just one but several technologies? Even to the extent that they attempted to criminalize the use of one of them for uses that they did not approve?
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If you think that's tough, try being a VB application developer.... I wrote my first program for money in 1979 for a Radioshak TRS80 - CPM Anyone remember that? Operating systems and languages come and go, it's all just tools and synatx. In my limited experience end users never give a single thought to the language or operating system, only the results. All the rest is insecure people defending what they "Know".
Ed Aymami wrote:
In my limited experience end users never give a single thought to the language or operating system, only the results.
Well, except for the occasional marketing person that manages to latch onto a technical term and turn it into the word for the day in an attempt to sell a product.
Ed Aymami wrote:
All the rest is insecure people defending what they "Know".
Yep.
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Bruce Patin wrote:
Microsoft did NOT support the PC revolution, which was going strong without them
I suspect that the "PC revolution" would have been far different if the underdog, which was in fact Microsoft at the time, had not managed to slip a minor clause into the contract with IBM concerning the OS that they were creating. The one that allowed them to sell the OS on computers from other vendors. Without that it is very likely that all vendors would be like Apple.
Bruce Patin wrote:
What they did was to simplify the PC revolution a bit by killing off competitors using illegal and unethical practices.
Obviously subjective nonsense. You must work for and look for jobs in a far, far different economy that I do. There are certainly tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of technologica companies that exist outside of Microsoft. You do in fact know which computer company is currently worth the most right? The one that does in fact maintain a strict monopoly over not just one but several technologies? Even to the extent that they attempted to criminalize the use of one of them for uses that they did not approve?
Microsoft deliberately killed Dr. DOS. Microsoft's contract with IBM also eventually killed OS/2. There are lots of other technology companies, but Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop operating systems in the U.S., and, until recently, has not even tried to cooperate with other companies or adhere to world standards. I am not saying Microsoft is the worst. Apple is obviously worse. IBM would be if it could - about ten years ago, IBM's consent agreement ended, and IBM promptly killed off competitors in the mainframe business. Business should try to get along for the sake of their customers, and should rise and fall on the strength of their products, not on shady deals. It irritates me daily that I have to constantly be aware to change backslashes to forward slashes or the other way around, depending on what system I am working on, or that I have to make special tweaks in JavaScript (the name of which was stupidly changed from LiveScript by a salesman) to get my web pages to work on more than one browser, or that I have to install Microsoft Office on all of my home computers at great expense, simply because our jobs and the school systems are so stuck on Microsoft that they can't tolerate anything different.