I remember a friend from my old neighborhood, when we were kids: I had already started using a PC but he had an Apple, which for the Greek standards at that time was weird. I was thinking, is he serious? I didn’t know anyone with an Apple at the time. He was telling me of how much ahead Apple computers where and that he wouldn’t change it for anything else. I also, remember when I abandoned Amiga and went to use an early PC with only DOS running on it, I was feeling that instead of progress, I was going backwards. I was thinking, what the hell? Why don’t they continue brilliant computers like the home ones? I met that friend many years later and asked him if he still uses Apple computers. To my surprise he was!

Anyway, we are here now in 2008. I have been programming using languages and tools that run on Microsoft operating systems for more than 10 years. I am not really sure yet, but I get the feeling something is wrong with the commercial tools. First of all, if you don’t have this supercomputer you cannot really work with the various IDEs without having a nervous breakdown. Then, there are all these new libraries, frameworks and technology that appear almost every month and you are not sure what to learn, if you should learn and if someone decides after you have spent months learning that what you have learned doesn’t worth funding any more and goes to the trashcan.

I have been hearing things on the open source movement are better and different. My experience in life tells me of course that there isn’t a perfect solution to all the problems, but I also know that some solutions are a little better than others and maybe more compatible with one’s character. As a principle, though, I cannot recommend anything to anyone unless I have tried that myself and have been convinced that it is better than the alternatives. More so, when the alternative is mainstream.