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"Like it or not, you must learn at least the bare minimum about Windows"

This might have been true in 1995. It's not true today.

Agreed this is somewhat debatable. But the language "bare minimum" still applies I think. Remember, this is at a large software development shop, so there will still be dozens of windows machines. Google is the only company I have heard of that drew a hard line saying no windows machines on the development network.

There are many companies that are entirely non-Windows, actually.

And Web developers don't need to waste time learning "the bare minimum about Windows," they only need to learn how to install Windows in a virtual machine so they can use IE for testing purposes.

But are all of the customers non-Windows as well?

There are no Windows machines on the development network for my program at Lockheed. I can't speak for the entire enterprise, but every engineer has a Windows box for e-mail and general internet access and a UNIX box on a different network for real work.

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