Lazycoder

Should the hobbyist programmer matter to Microsoft?

Rory Blyth – Should the hobbyist programmer matter to Microsoft?

I whole-heartedly think that Microsoft has to cater to the hobbiest programmer, because that’s the majority of their users. Do you think the bosses secretary has time to figure out how to use the provider pattern for her mail merge? Does your mom need to know how to create a normalized DB or writer her own XML schema that she can validate her Christmas card mailing list against and can she use the forms wizard in Access? That’s the type of person that could also be considered a hobby programmer. If anything, I think Microsoft should expand and embrace the hobbiest programmer. Think about every desktop out there running Windows.

update: The eye of Robert Scoble is upon Rory too. He looks at it from a business POV but missed my point. He thinks the hobbyist could come up with the next big thing. I think that’s possible, but the secretary needs more abstractions in .NET or Access or Excel or Word before they’re able to write a small macro or function that does whatever they need to do.