[ale] .NET considered harmful

[Lightner, Jeff]

Trying to explain the nuances of IT positions isn't fun.   For most folks I end up having to say "I do computer work".   Heck, half the time when they hear me say "Systems Administrator" they think I'm telling them I'm manager type.  Their eyes tend to glaze over if I try to explain exactly what I do.   

One of my favorite Dilbert strips involves him explaining to the PHB that the OS is UNIX not Eunuchs.   The PHB says to tell the company nurse "never mind" when she shows up with scissors.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Don Lachlan
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 2:33 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] .NET considered harmful

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 9:42 AM, John Pilman <jcpilman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Microsoft makes him feel bigger.  He spends a lot of the blog slamming
> Microsoft and .NET.  What he says about them may be true, but it does
> not help to identify good programmers.
> If he is looking for programmers who like to program and try different
> things, any short list of languages would be suspect.
> I wish you, Jerald or Don, had written that blog instead.  You both
> did a better job describing good programmers than the original author.

I thank you for the compliment but I think I was repeating the same
things the blog author did. The "programmer" vs. "computer scientist"
(vs. "software developer/engineer") is a nuance I've been trying to
explain to people for 10 years. Perhaps if he had put it into that
comparison, he would've gotten less hate... But I doubt it.

Whenever a new "easy" language/platform/tool comes out, lots of
less-skilled people jump on it because it requires less skill - that's
the point. If you're evaluating someone, don't you wonder why they
jumped to something which was targeted to less-skilled people? It may
have been the right/best tool - trust me, I've watched people piss and
moan about "XYZ sucks" when it *is* the right tool - but very often
the "easy" solution isn't the right solution, it's just the right one
for less skilled people.

.NET is going to be the right/best platform for a number of things -
but if he's hiring for things where it *isn't* going to be, shouldn't
he screen out people who used .NET when the best solution was
something else?

-L

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