I’ve got a computer since year 2000. I did not have any idea about the Y2K problem, or anything about computers. It was just a big, powerful and bright game machine for me. It was a Pentium-III machine, and Windows 98 SE was installed on it. Yeah, that seems antique now, but it was one of the price/performance mongers. I played many games with it, and most of it, it was my first tool for programming.
Yes, I wrote my first piece of code back in 2000, while I was at high school. My friend found a QBasic programming book and its compiler. Later, I learned most of Windows applications were written in varieties of Basic, especially Visual Basic. I was thinking that, computers were built with Windows, and there were no other operating systems. I was hearing something called Unix, but it seemed like it was being used in spacecraft only. Since I had only Windows chance, I was trying to learn Microsoft tools.
One year later, I entered university, computer engineering department. During one-year English preparation, I had a chance to improve my programming, but QBasic was very primitive. Web programming was rising, and the easiest web programming tool was PHP and MySQL. Although I was not very fond of database programming, I focused on PHP. I also first noticed that there were other web browsers than Internet Explorer. I discovered Mozilla. At that time, Windows XP was released. Some of you might remember, Windows XP had an application pre-installed: MSN Explorer. That was something like Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger and Outlook Express combined together. I tried, actually forced, myself to use that application, but it did not fit on me. Yes, for the first time, I was thinking that Microsoft was not the only way. Being at university, and an open-source fanatic one, I was discovering a new world. With some luck, one of the computer magazines gave free Linux CDs (SuSE 7.1). That was a good chance for me, I installed it alongside Windows. That was a bad experience, I almost lost almost all of my personal files, music and so on. I blamed Linux and re-installed Windows XP. Then installed my games.
At the university, we had to code our homeworks in C, and it should have be compiled on GNU C Compiler. I had to make Linux run on my machine now. I tried several distros, and finally decided on Mandrake (R.I.P.). At the same time, Microsoft published .net and established a partnership with the department. One day, we received our C# books, each one signed to our names. Wouw, that was cool. I have the book, so why not I learn C# and .net? In the summer holiday, I installed the development environment and began reading the book. The first chapter was easy, I printed the infamous “Hello World!” to the console. That’s all. I was somewhat familiar with Microsoft help documents (Windows F1), which were always for dummies. Hey, Microsoft buddy, remember, you sent that book to an engineer candidate, right? Please do not repeat how to delete a file in each chapter! I got bored with the book, and, frankly, .net did not seem interesting to me.
After learning several programming languages in school, I finally discovered Java. Java was simple, intuitive and free. I could code web and my TV with Java! And, Java was, beyond the simplicity, really big. Everyday I learned new about Java. I loved Java.
Nowadays, my company has taken a different path on product platform. The stakeholders have agreed with Microsoft, and almost half of the developer team – including me – has been forced to work on Microsoft products. This is, not writing C# code or aspx files. We are working on Sharepoint 2013 and Office 365! What I have learned in two weeks is, there is no work for engineers in Sharepoint. Newbie developers or Microsoft certified non-engineers can do the work. Oh, I forgot, old Microsoft sales “engineers”, who have sold their souls to the Microsoft monopoly can be the “advisor” and earn your whole monthly salary in one day, by telling you stories.
The Dark Side is taking me in. I am not motivated, I do not love the job. I know myself, I will not be motivated for any Microsoft technology. So my decision is set, I will not ruin my career in this path. I’ll not sell my soul.
