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It will be interesting to see how many startups succeed using this program. Since startups often employ tools for competitive advantage, this will be a good test between the microsoft and open source tool chains.

Also, as pg's essay points out, great hackers like to work with great tools / languages, so it will be interesting to see if they can recruit the right talent.

http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

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I'm using BizSpark to get access to tools so I can develop some Office plugins and related msi installers. In such a situation, the greatest competitive advantage is found using their tools. And, in general, you should be able to use any language that targets the CLR.

"Competitive advantage" means roughly "doing things your competitors can't". You can't do that with off-the-shelf tools unless your competitors are in Nigeria and can't afford them.

you can do it with off-the-shelf tools if your competitors decide to use really "hackerish" languages and tools and end up taking longer to produce the same or lesser product.

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