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So this past Friday, the CEO of Expensify, David Barrett, started off the weekend by ticking off 97.2% of the .NET community with a “Why we don’t hire .NET programmers” blog post.

This goes on from time to time. This weekend it’s .NET vs. whatever language(s) that Expensify prefers; other times it’s network equipment like Cisco vs. HP vs. Netgear vs. Dell, followed by Mac vs. PC and, let us not forget iPhone vs. Droid. Technology racism, if you will.

No one is ever correct in generalized, vague discussions, especially when talking technology platforms. Like driving on a highway, you can cover a lot of distance in a short time, but you really haven’t spent any time in the towns you just blew through.

The technology of choice depends on the work at hand.

Case in point: This past week, I went to work. I sat down on my desk, where I have a PC and a Mac.

I connected to our Cisco wireless access points, connected to our HP and Dell switches.

I used this network connection to code in C# on my Windows PC, PuTTy’d into a few of our Linux servers, edited a couple PHP scripts in nano, dabbled a bit in C++ DirectShow filters, wrote Javascript-style sketches for an Arduino, integrated systems with Microsoft CRM, created a SQL database and integrated with Oracle, streamed 2 live events through Silverlight and Windows Media Services, talked on my VoIP phone, looked up information on a SharePoint intranet, and FaceTime’d on my iPad.

Mixed bowl, huh.

I love swimming in such a soupy mix, because it makes me a better solution provider when I have more than one tool on my belt – and it gives me respect for each vastly different approach that these tools take.

The CEO of Expensify ultimately compared .NET to “cooking in a McDonalds kitchen” – trying to make the point that folks who use .NET are sheltered from low-level details (a “real kitchen”).

“None of this makes you a “bad programmer”. All these differences are perfectly irrelevant if you just want to make 1.6 oz burgers as fast as possible, and commit the rest of your career to an endless series of McDonalds menus. But every day spent in that kitchen is a day NOT spent in a real kitchen, learning how to cook real food, and write real code.”

I guess the C# I wrote last week was fake code. I guess I wrote it for a fake customer. I suppose the check they’ll send me is fake. Does the PHP count?

You see, a good cook can make a great meal – er, real food – in a McDonalds kitchen. Or over a campfire. Or at a steakhouse.

The point I wanted to blog about so that I don’t forget is this: There is a huge difference between a vague and specific technology criticism. The question we’ve got to ask, that changes the game is:

“In what context, and in what example?”

“Macs are better than PCs.” In what context? (Certainly not ERP. But certainly print graphics.)

“iPhone is better than Droid.” In what context? (Certainly not turn-by-turn navigation. But certainly videoconferencing.)

… and back to Expensify:

“Again, this isn’t a rant against .NET — it’s fine. It’s not even a rant against .NET developers being incapable of learning — they can learn as well as anyone. It’s a rant against .NET teaching the wrong things for startups.”

In what context, and in what example? What wrong things? And whose startup?

If you’re unable to answer that question, you may as well be arguing Why You Don’t Hang Out With People Named David.

Make your choice for the job at hand. Deliver great solutions, in whatever kitchen you cook.