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Comment by DarrenStuart | Hacker News Reader

being a .net contractor myself I have to agree and then disagree.

The most day coders I have come across are in the .net field but as I work in this field I don't know if this is true. I suspect java has its fair share of day coders.

However I have met a lot of really good coders who use .net as a tool that has been given to them to use.

I don't want to get into a flamewar but the article did make me wonder if most developers view .net developers as lesser developers because of their chosen toolset. Does this have more to do with the hate of MS or do they really believe it.

From a knowledge point of view .net requries a lot more traditional programming skills than ruby ever does. I bet .net developers don't look down on ruby developers in the same way.

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My vote goes to most day coders being Java people.

My coworker across the hall can't see why anybody would write Python if Java is an option. "Ooh yeah, let me at it in Java... I'll have a JSR-4567-compliant Bean to drop into a custom container in no time!"

> JSR-4567-compliant

In 1995, Java was a fun language. Since then, the fun has been squeezed out of it and it has become more akin to accountancy.

You have to ask ask yourself, "why's that so" ? Why the so called day coders do Java, C# or COBOL and not Smalltalk, LISP or Ruby ? There's a reason for everything and in programming the reason to use language a instead of language b in a software "factory" is definitely effectivity. That is, how fast a product can be done using Java/C# or lisp ? How much is it gonna cost to maintain that product and add features ? How much is it going to cost to train new people ? And so on.

Those economists in management surely don't wake up one day and announce : "We will use C#".

Management is persuaded by smooth-talking consultants looking to win more project hours, not by measured effectiveness. (I'm talking about industry overall, not anybody in particular.)

The day coders pick Java/C#/Cobol because that's where the jobs are. Companies might have chosen them for sound technical reasons (or not), but day coders won't learn languages/tools that don't pay the bills.

For reference, a Monster search for .net jobs in Chicago gives 266 results. Java gives 403. Lisp gives 22 for the entire country. Not something to learn if you just want a job to fund your real life.

> the article did make me wonder if most developers view .net developers as lesser developers because of their chosen toolset.

At least part of it is that in many cases it's not their chosen toolset; it's what they were given.

> From a knowledge point of view .net requries a lot more traditional programming skills than ruby ever does.

How so?

> At least part of it is that in many cases it's not their chosen toolset; it's what they were given.

read my post I already said that.

> How so? You can figure this out yourself by comparing C# to ruby

You can figure this out yourself by comparing C# to ruby

I was hoping for more specific examples, as I gathered the parent was. It's still not clear to me what "more traditional programming skills" means, or why it's a good thing, or why (C# - Ruby) yields traditional programming, while (Ruby - C#) should be... non-traditional programming?

Its an untyped, interpreted and does not have any heritage with the likes of C or even basic.

I guess it's heritage is smalltalk which I did enjoy when I studied.

Don't get me wrong it has its place but I think of it as a language that is like basic used to be. extremely easy to program in but if you learn just ruby you would have a hard time jumping to another programming langunage than if you had come from C#, C/C++ etc

no flames please :p

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