I'm not talking about outliers. I am talking about the majority of the user base, with few exceptions. To put a bit of a bigoted statement into this, let me say that traditionally Microsoft had several development streams, with the least talented, least motivated career developers finding the Visual Basic stream. The streams converged and it is all the worse for it.
To use the search engine "index", it's a quick way to gauge how frequently a user base dares to go outside of the trivial. With .NET I am frequently amazed when I'm trying to do something remotely complex and in looking for people discussing the topic, find nothing but a few unanswered questions via search engines. It has always disturbed me, and it in essence speaks to the linked article's point.
Comparing the .NET user base with the PHP user base also says a ton about its technical prowess. PHP is the Visual Basic of web development - it's considered an entry-level language and has a lot of problems. That said, Visual Basic paid a lot of my bills between 1991 and 1995.
I'm not talking about outliers. I am talking about the majority of the user base, with few exceptions. To put a bit of a bigoted statement into this, let me say that traditionally Microsoft had several development streams, with the least talented, least motivated career developers finding the Visual Basic stream. The streams converged and it is all the worse for it.
To use the search engine "index", it's a quick way to gauge how frequently a user base dares to go outside of the trivial. With .NET I am frequently amazed when I'm trying to do something remotely complex and in looking for people discussing the topic, find nothing but a few unanswered questions via search engines. It has always disturbed me, and it in essence speaks to the linked article's point.