A Programmer Cliché

The first time I heard "Microsoft sucks," it came out of the mouth of an avid Mac user. Since then, though, the Mac-using set have faded in their MS bashing. Maybe it's due to the fact that most Macs are built with PC parts.

It's the programming set that has clung to that phrase.

I have never met a single programmer who hasn't screamed that statement, and usually repeatedly. They aren't Mac fans. Nope they think Macs are just as lame, yet they focus their seething hatred on Microsoft.

Programmers say "Microsoft sucks" so much that the phrase has become pure cliché . I can always predict when those words will come out of their mouths.

Now, I'm not going to defend Microsoft. Their release of the Vista OS is a near complete travesty. I was using a laptop with Vista installed the other day, when my cursor slipped off the edge of the browser window. That's when I witnessed for the first time the complaints of Vista having essentially copied the function of the Mac OS... the windows shrunk and fell back. I hate this feature of Macs with a passion, almost as much as the one-click mouse.

Anyway, I let out with my distaste for the drop-back windows. Then the programmer I've recently been around spewed the cliché. I rolled my eyes and said, "Actually, that's a Mac feature." His response was to ignore my comment and put on his headset to listen to music. (Pretty freakin' rude, man.)

"Yeah," I thought, "Just go back to your superior Linux system."

You see that's the problem with most programmers. They live by Linux or Unix. There's no doubt about it. Linux is the most customizable and stable operating system out there. But, you practically need an advanced degree in programming to even make it operable for your needs.

Listen up programmers!
The average user has no time or patience to spend hours learning how to set up a Linux OS. This isn't 1983, where we spend hours writing the code to create a boot disk for our Tandy computers. Microsoft users are happy with the ease of use their OS provides. They just want to surf the web, use the word processor, and send emails. Relish in your knowledge, but remember that most of us have better things to do than learn how to program our computers. Microsoft works just fine for almost all of us.

To use another cliché: Stop being a broken record!