I can’t believe this still happens. I have recently been at a customer to talk about a new project. After hours of a very constructive meeting we decided to talk with the technical assistance at this company. I’m working as a freelancer and so I usually talk to the executives first to know what they need and what they exactly want to have and after that I have to communicate with the companies local technical administration. So as I said after a very constructive meeting with the executives we took our notes and went to the companies it-department.
Usually you just have to examine how local infrastructure is at the companies. Best place for getting this kind of information is the administrator. Now this time it should get some kind harder. As maybe some of you know I like working with ASP.NET. In fact I like the .NET framework as whole very much. I also develop in C++ and Assembler or the old Visual Basic 6.0 or let’s talk about PHP for web development, but most of you may agree that the .NET framework opened some great doors for developers. So to continue with this story I faced an administrator who thought himself being an Linux god. Not enough of praying Linux whole day he was against anything which comes from Microsoft. I tried to explain him why we want to develop a portal with ASP.NET and why we want to use a MS SQL Server as backend. I also tried to explain him why and how we want to implement this in the existing infrastructure of his company, but I soon noticed that he was not very cooperative, trying to explain with some very poor arguments to the executives why not to use ASP.NET. I won’t go more into detail, I only want to say that we needed about 3-4 hours talking with the executives and planning a whole new project and on the other hand we have been sitting about two hours talking to an administrator who’s job is to give me the required information (would have taken about 15 minutes) and we noticed that he was anything but cooperative and helpful.
Why am I telling this story?
BECAUSE I’M SICK OF THIS “MICROSOFT IS BAD” AND “LINUX IS BEST” DISCUSSIONS.
I have developed the DirectX.DevPak for the MinGW compiler (the most complete devpak for DirectX 9.0 available). I have released a various of other DevPaks for Dev-Cpp, but not because I thought the Microsoft is shit or because I didn’t have the money for the Visual Studio 6.0 but to help people who use Dev-Cpp to develop DirectX applications. I work since I can think with Microsoft products in my business life and also worked with other operating systems then windows in my life. Every OS has its advantages and disadvantages. But to tell you the truth I never thought that I would sit in the year 2009 at a company and have to start such discussions like “Micro$oft is sucking”.
Does anyone of those fuckers knows what he is talking about? I mean it’s ok when on forums people ages 15-16 discuss each other endless nights why MS is shit and so on. I really laugh about this but I mean I was talking to a 35 year old person who was against something that he didn’t tried out.
So I decided to mention some points here why those discussions suck. These points are directly addressed to you Linux and PHP suckers. Wake up. You live in 2009. Do you listen to yourself when talking? Why don’t you give arguments when you compare Linux with Windows? Why don’t you argue when you compare PHP with ASP.NET or MySql with MS SQL Server? And don’t tell me you give arguments, because you don’t. You say Microsoft is commercial which is right and Microsoft products are full of bugs, but thats all. You cannot give really arguments. An argument consists of a predication, of a statement and finally of an example. This is all missing when you talk.
Here is a list of arguments you should think about before busting my balls:
- If there haven’t been Microsoft, the technical progress of the personal computers would have never improved that way. Imagine how much did a x86 like the 386DX cost without MS-DOS and how much did it cost with MS-DOS. Imagine how cheap personal computers have been with the Microsoft Windows 3.11 and how much you had to pay without this. Imagine how fast personal computers became because hardware developers tried to keep up with new features of the operating system. And most important question: Where has Linux been that times?
- One of the most nerving statements of Apple users: “Microsoft Windows is full of bugs”. Ahm yeah you idiots. Did you know that Microsoft has to develop operating systems which must work on every available hardware configuration? They have to do an ass full of work on research and development and still hardware configurations change from hour to hour since hardware manufacturers release new versions and new components nearly every day. Ok we have to admit that Microsoft maybe released some kind of operating systems which have been crap (I’m talking about the ME edition of Windows 95) but they soon learned from their mistakes. So show me what Apple has to do? Apple can concentrate on one hardware with slight differences in configuration. That’s all. Apple is like Porsche. Porsche is working for the last 10 years on one and the same model (the 911). The game industry spreads block busting titles every month, pushing hardware to the limits. New hardware is developed and has to be integrated as soon as possible. Do you want to play Doom3 with Ghost’n Goblins graphics? No you don’t!!!
- Microsoft is profit oriented. Yes and 99,9% of the other companies on the world are too. Come on stop thinking like a child. If a company is not profit oriented it wouldn’t exists very long. Are the game developers not profit oriented? If some of you stupid idiots answer this question with no than I would recommend you to go to the next store, take a game and walk out without paying for it. This is one of the most stupid arguments I ever heard. Of course Microsoft is profit oriented. Do you get Apple iBooks for free? Now the Linux community will say they have a much greater operating system which doesn’t cost a dime. That’s true, at least the part “it’s free” is true. But why is it free? Because it’s developed by a community and not a company. I would like to see you guys what have happened if a company had developed Linux. 🙂
- “Microsoft products suck. They require Microsoft operating systems.” Yes. Read the point above. Imagine Mercedes-Benz would produce fenders which fit also on BMW or on Dodge. How can you people be stupid enough to think in this times economy someone would do this. And why should Microsoft develop something which also runs on Apple, Linux or anything else?
- “I’m a developer and the Visual Studio is so expensive I cannot afford it so I use MinGW for Cpp development and PHP for web development.” Come on, you really bust my balls. Since the release of the express editions this shouldn’t be an issue. If you work on commercial projects you have to get yourself a professional edition but that’s also for Dev-Cpp (which uses the the MinGW compiler and don’t say no!!! Read the license agreement of Dev-Cpp!!!). That’s for all tools same.
- “ASP.NET sucks. PHP is the best!!!”. If I would have a gun, then you would have a big hole in your head now. This is my favorite on the list of most stupid arguments. I took the time to make a test with a guy who is a PHP pro. The target of the test was to develop a small testing solution with a database backend and some business logic in there. My partner used PHP and MySQL and I used ASP.NET with MS Sql Server Express.
- I was finished with my application within two days. The application was fully customizable, fast, secure, easy to extend. The PHP pro was still working on the database interface. This was an extreme example. In reality the gap wouldn’t be that big but it showed up that development with ASP.NET can be more fast than in PHP (especially when starting from scratch). As a freelancer time is very important also as security, reliability and customizability.
This is only a short list of points. Of course you can extend this list endlessly. Nobody sais that Windows is the best operating system. Nobody sais that ASP.NET is the best web development platform. Nobody sais that Microsoft does always a great job. But how can you be so ignorant and not see the truth. Microsoft helped the technology reach the standard we have today. And we must admit that we like it. We must admit that we like the fact where we are today. And we also must admit that we are glad companies like Microsoft will influence the direction on where we will be the next 10-25 years. I’m 33 years old and work with computers since I can think. I know the times where the only affordable technology an Atari VCS 2600 was. I remember the times where I owned an Amstrad CPC. That times personal computers with 1MB Ram and Hercules, or CGA graphics still have been prohibitive with some kind of DOS.
You Microsoft haters. I didn’t get paid for this blog and I also work with Linux and PHP if needed, so I know both sites of the coin. What I didn’t understand and as long as such discussions exists maybe I never will understand how ignorant and subjective you guys are. Open your eyes. Does anyone of you know that Google could me much more dangerous to you than Microsoft will ever be?
