Hi,
On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 9:27 PM, Saswata Banerjee scrapo@saswatabanerjee.com wrote:
And for your information, they have a very active community, both for users and for developers, that has members who are very much willing to help out newbies. And in most cases the community comes up with solutions. They have large bank of reusable codes that are available for developers to use, including a 12GB knowledgebase from which you can find who else had the same problem and what is the solution. If the community is unable to help and the matter is complex, microsoft inhouse developer and trainers step in and help out.
We are actually comparing two stuff that are of entirely different philosophies. In the world of FOSS, we have IRCs and mailing lists which will help you with any technical stuff. It is not controlled by one company that owns everything. With respect to the large bank of reusable code, is that larger the the code that is contributed to the whole world by the FOSS community ? I don't think so.
All this is from personal experiance. Believe me, newbies in Microsoft environment get a lot of help.
I have personally learn lots of stuff from these mailing lists and IRCs. It is a misconception that all newbie questions are neglected. There are lots of people here in these mailing lists who take time to answer newbie questions as well.