Microsoft is an important computer
company. I use Microsoft products.
To save my time getting background
information, I just stay with
Microsoft's products.

Why just Microsoft? Because
for what I'm doing, it's enough,
and I don't see anything else
clearly better.
My computer usage and software
development are on Windows.

My development is for a Web
site where the site runs on
Windows. My Web site sends to
users just very standard HTTP,
HTML, and CSS; so users
need only a Web browser up to
date as of, say, five, maybe
10, years ago.

Each of my
Web pages is just 800 pixels
wide, with large fonts and high
contrast, and should look good
on any device with a screen
with 800 pixels of width.
The Web pages have both vertical
and horizontal scroll bars
so that, really, the pages
should be usable on any device
with 300 pixels of width and
even fewer pixels of height.

Net, my users might be
using Linux and/or Apple
products -- fine with me,
but I don't have to be
using Linux or Apple products
and so far am not.

I have no Apple products.
I've never used any Apple products.
I've never used Linux or Unix.
Why? My project just doesn't need
Apple products. Or Linux.

That experience with Unix, Linux,
or Apple is a prerequisite for
being an expert in computing,
which I am, is absurd.

Yes, maybe generally HN is
strongly in favor
of Apple and Linux and, basically,
hates Microsoft.

I had to select a computing platform,
and the main two choices were
Linux, maybe on Apple products,
and Microsoft. I selected Microsoft.

For the hardware, I got some
parts, motherboard, processor,
fans, disk drives, CD/DVD
burners, diskette drive
(still used a few times),
power supply,
case, monitor, keyboard,
lots of cables, lots of
little screws, etc.,
a B/W laser printer connected
via USB, gigabit Ethernet,
etc. Wired a cable to drive
my old daisy wheel printer
(still really good
for addressing envelopes)
via a 9-pin serial port.

That hardware has been fine.

I've stayed
with Microsoft; that's not a bad
decision.

Linux and Apple? So far I don't
need them and, thus, don't want
to allocate time, money, and effort
to use them.

Your implication that Linux and Apple
are standard prerequisites for HN
is rude, insulting, and absurd.

Xcode -- garbage if not defined.

And I shouldn't need Google to read
HN.

Lesson: Once again, over again,
one more time, time n + 1 for
a very large n, clearly, simply,
don't do it; never do it;
give up on it;
having in group jargon,
essentially deliberately undefined, is
garbage behavior;
trying to put off people
outside the in group is
very bad behavior for everyone;
IBM used to do that and it really
cost them; in group jargon
is a really big, bad, bummer;
being inclusive is much better,
and now even Microsoft knows this;
liking undefined in group jargon
is really bad stuff;
undefined acronyms are really bad
stuff; don't do it; simple
lesson; got it now? Don't do it;
don't excuse it;
don't put up with it.

I'm not against Apple or Linux;
it's just that, given that I do
work on Windows,
I don't need Apple or Linux
and, thus, get to save on
time, money, and energy that would
be needed to use them. And, Objective-C?
Don't need it. Python? Don't need it.
PHP, Ruby, Rails, Django,
Scheme, Lisp,
assembler, C, C++,
model-view-controller,
Java, JavaScript,
JQuery, node.js -- don't need them
because they add little or
nothing to what I already have
on Windows.

E.g., Microsoft's ASP.NET
writes a little JavaScript
for me, but so far I have
not written or even read
a single line of it. Don't need it.

Pop-ups, pull-downs, roll-overs?
Don't like them; don't need them;
don't use them. JavaScript for
asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX),
don't need it or use it.

A point: I'm not a professional
programmer. It's been a long time
since I wrote code for other people.

Now I'm an entrepreneur doing a startup.
For my startup, I write all the
code, and I'm writing that code on
Windows. I've written some quite
significant code.

But it is important for me
to save my time, money, and effort
and, thus, try hard not to buy,
that is, invest time, money, and effort in,
tools that
I don't really need.
So, so far I get to ignore
Linux, Apple, PHP, ... Java, etc.