Originally printed in Visual Basic Magazine, reprinted here because the online article is no longer available and it's only fair to provide context for the original commentary. Article Author: Elden Nelson. All copyrights belong to original owner.

Are You a Techno-Retro-Grouch?

Techno-retro-grouch: noun, derived from mountain bike slang): A programmer who insists on using the same old tools for development, rejecting any new language or technology as a passing fad or plot to rule the world.

During lunch breaks, you can usually find me hanging out at the local bike shop. There, a few friends and I engage in ritual chest thumping. We describe horrendous wrecks we've had, beautiful trails we've discovered, and epic rides where we've found ourselves slogging through endless snow, rain, and mud. Often, talk turns to biking gear. Here, opinions diverge sharply. I, for example, tend to be an early adopter. If a company with a good track record comes out with a component that seems like it'll make my bike lighter, faster, or handle better, I'm likely to try it out.

Some of my friends, on the other hand, bemoan the latest technological gizmos (tubeless tire wheelsets with ceramic rims, fully suspended titanium frames, carbon-fiber handlebars that weigh next to nothing) because they take the "soul" out of the sport. In the mountain bike world, these guys are called "retro-grouches." They see themselves as wise, world-weary types, too experienced to be sucked in to the latest fad. It gives them character and mystique ... or the mountain bike equivalent thereof.

I have to admit, there's a certain allure to the retro-grouch biking philosophy—simply to snort in derision at the newfangled, johnny-come-lately gear. So I bought a bike frame with classic geometry, set it up as a single-speed (no shifters, no derailleurs) and equipped it with heavy, bomb-proof parts. Throw in baggy riding shorts and a surly attitude and voilà! I'm a retro-grouch.

Except it didn't quite work out. The bike felt heavy, unresponsive. It was inefficient uphill, and slow downhill. I went back to my geared, suspended, titanium bike almost immediately.

Now when I go riding, I show up with my light, fast, technology-soaked bike, hoping others have bought into the retro-grouch fallacy, thereby increasing my own advantage. Oh, sure, I still get all nostalgic about the old-school bikes, but when it's time to get rolling, I want to be fast.

OK, now comes the part where I beat you over the head with my analogy. I submit that there is such a thing as a "techno-retro-grouch," and that a lot of the development world is playing that role. It's not romantic to seem like a Microsoft joiner. When talking to each other or the industry, it's cooler to be critical than enthusiastic. It's much easier to lambaste VB.NET, roll your eyes at C#, and scoff outright at the whole .NET vision. Programmers do this all the time in newsgroups, in surveys, and in letters to this magazine.

When it comes time to get to work, though, smart developers (by which I mean you) are realizing that it doesn't make much sense to be a techno-retro-grouch. For example, at the most recent VBITS conferences, the C# sessions were packed. In our latest reader survey, 57 percent of you showed a strong affinity toward Microsoft's .NET initiative, saying either "I'm sold on .NET no matter what" or "It's Microsoft's job to lose." In fact, that survey also showed that less than a measly 5 percent of you aren't considering .NET development at all and 72 percent of you are planning to do at least some .NET development in the near future.

It sounds to me like you're realizing VB is not the perfect development tool for all applications. Does that mean old-school Visual Basic is never the right tool for the job? Of course not. It just means it's not always the right tool for the job. But you'll never know that if you dismiss all the other Visual Studio technologies out-of-hand.

Although it's fun to talk about the good ol' days when all you needed was VB and a command-line compiler, things are changing. To remain competitive, you've got to learn new tricks, including (but not limited to) the whole slew of new technologies in VS.NET. And if you'll take a look at Pat's note a couple of pages back, you'll see we've realized that exact same thing.

And if other programmers insist on being techno-retro-grouches, well, that just makes the rest of us look that much more leading-edge.