I read the eWeek review of Visual Studio 2005 with Peter Coffee as the Editor. On the very first page of the review, eWeek throws out the following...

Every Visual Studio release since the debut of this line has had a compound agenda: It's always offered developers an attractively paved path of least resistance that indubitably increased productivity, but has also fostered acceptance of Microsoft's current strategic direction. Visual Studio 2005, launched last month, is no exception. Even the expanded and redesigned Start page of the Visual Studio 2005 environment is an express invitation to join a movement rather than merely to write an application.

This is not entirely a criticism, but it is a critical point for developers to understand when weighing their alternatives—not just in choosing tools but also in adopting future application models. (emphasis added)

Statements like that really piss me off. Name to me one developer technology that does not fundamentally require the developer to choose tools and future application models??? Now if this is a subtle reference to the "evils" of Windows lock-in, then fine, guilty as charged. But at least come out and say that adopting .NET requires developers to commit to the Microsoft platform. But to make it sound as if Microsoft is doing something fundamentally different from a tools or strategy direction as compared to other choices is bull crap.

If a developer chooses Java, they are at a minimum commited to a particular application platform and its associated models. Possibly even toolset or vendor depending on what tools they use and how they use them. Do you think PHP developers have "committed to a movement"? If you have ever met some of those folks you know the word zealot can be applied to a few of them! :-)

Every dev tool and/or platform requires a commitment to that tool/platform community, movement, whatever. That is just the way things are. If it wasn't they wouldn't talk about making a choice!!! But to call it out as "not entirely a criticism" (meaning that it mostly is a criticism) at the beginning of the article just strikes me as a way to take a jab at Microsoft by framing the Microsoft developer community as some kind of kool-aid drinking gumbas that reader needs to be wary of. Sure, we are, but no more so than any other dev community! ;-) Ok, so am I just being a bit sensitive?