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[bennyboy]

I mean, if you're using C# and .NET code, then sure. However nothing you said above is any different on Linux using another programming language. Stuff like Ruby on Rails, Python (e.g. Django), or PHP frameworks all work just fine, in exactly the manner you've described.

Except that nobody has a computer with any of this already installed. Almost everyone I know in Korea has access to at least one Windows-based computer. I suspect for solo projects, I might find Linux more flexible than Windows in a lot of ways. However, I couldn't for example throw an app on a download page and tell customers to download it.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of Linux stuff does its work better than Microsoft does. But when taken as a whole body of work, I gotta feel that corporate synergy bringing everything together.

What are you talking about? Linux based operating systems invented the App Store:

But that's what I'm saying. All Microsoft products are connected by that common thread. I can either create C# scripts directly IN Office files, or I can use libraries built into .NET to access the files in my apps. Other than that, I can use exclusively Microsoft solutions and custom-designed programs. I don't have to wory about RoR, Python, PHP. I don't have to look up documentation on a dozen different sites to figure out how a lot of 3rd party or indie stuff works.

Microsoft, essentially, is the one ring that rules them all.

I don't mean to be insulting. I know that tech fights get out of control because people are so invested in their own framework. A lot of it is probably just ignorance on my part. However, I'm pretty sure I could do a Youtube video of me putting together a custom solution over a few hours, including deploying an app to customers, another app to run in the background on my server, and website code, that someone using Linux would have to take a lot more time on.

Another part of it is probably my age. I'm a little shy of 50 now, and I learned most of my computing in earlier efforts to create computer games. 15 years ago or so, for me, that meant Windows programs written in c++ using either DirectX or OpenGL.