I'm arguing against taking a stack-centric view, which you and the author are doing, just taking opposite sides (open source/MS).
I'm arguing in favor of building up foundational knowledge that you can apply in any stack. This is the real essence of computation: decomposing problems, inventing abstractions, and composing those abstractions. These skills serve you in every stack you come into contact with. Why wouldn't you want to hone them? If you're good enough with these skills, then every new stack that comes along is relatively trivial to understand -- you can apply your foundational knowledge to easily understand what it is doing on your behalf.
I'm arguing against taking a stack-centric view, which you and the author are doing, just taking opposite sides (open source/MS).
I'm arguing in favor of building up foundational knowledge that you can apply in any stack. This is the real essence of computation: decomposing problems, inventing abstractions, and composing those abstractions. These skills serve you in every stack you come into contact with. Why wouldn't you want to hone them? If you're good enough with these skills, then every new stack that comes along is relatively trivial to understand -- you can apply your foundational knowledge to easily understand what it is doing on your behalf.