Debate - .NET V. PHP: Top 6 Reasons to Use .NET

[Jeremy W.]

You can extend .NET any way you wish. The CLR and most of .NET is open source, or do you keep forgetting that?

[HarryF]

The CLR and most of .NET is open source, or do you keep forgetting that?

No but this may be something different but either way that's why "correct me if I'm wrong was attached".

By PHP extension I'm talking about updates to the underlying PHP engine. Now I assume that .NET is in the end C++ somewhere below the hood - an update at this level is what I mean to extend the base functionality of the language itself.

[Jeremy W.]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound pissy

You can extend the engine, but not as easily as you can in PHP. The crew who's working on A.NET Forum is doing some engine extensions, as far as I understand, so I know it can in fact be done.

[Jeremy W.]

Originally posted by Majglow
Jeremy W.

Hmm... yeah.

Although, I bet in your case going MS (without the discount) would have been more expensive than Linux and Opens Source stuff...

Not at all. Cost of ditching existing operating systems, retraining MIS staff, retraining 200 users, redoing the business apps that tie into the web stuff, etc would have been phenomenal. Basically, we ran the figures and it would have been 50K more expensive in the first year to go with xNix.

[mgkimsal]

Not at all. Cost of ditching existing operating systems, retraining MIS staff, retraining 200 users, redoing the business apps that tie into the web stuff, etc would have been phenomenal. Basically, we ran the figures and it would have been 50K more expensive in the first year to go with xNix.

So essentially almost regardless of cost your calculations will find it's cheaper to use MS stuff, because that's what everything else in your environment is already. Fair enough, but for people that already have siginificant investments in Unix, .NET is certainly not 'cheaper' by any stretch.

This isn't directed at you personally, but I've heard your justifications before, and with that logic you will never ever ever leave MS land in million years. If suggesting that one app be done in PHP or Java or Delphi entails switching 200+ users and rewriting every business app you've ever done, then you'll never use anything but MS.

I would have thought that perhaps an XML exchange between apps or simply having two apps on different platforms share a common set of DB tables would have been a reasonable middle ground to test the appropriateness of possibly using a mixed development environment (best tool for the job and all that).

Just a thought...

[Jeremy W.]

If any company has any significant investment in any software or hardware, switching will always be a massive cost, it's one of the reasons so few companies do it.

You can program .NET for 0$. Companies can get setup with .NET for cheaper than any other application development environment. Web heads can program .NET for 0$.

The only "cost" is for hosting, which has nothing to do with .NET really, it has to do with the fact that MS had it's head to far up it's butt to release an xNix version right away.

If you want to write DTS (data transformation) apps for each of your applications feel free. For us, that would mean literally hundreds of them kicking around, just to use something free, that isn't really free, that doesn't save us any time or effort and requires us to learn another dev environment.

[voostind]

If we were just looking at PHP as a programming language in isolation then I would give it more slack on both it's OO and the fact that it's an interpreter rather than compilier. Once again however it has to be looked in the context of this thread, a comparision to .net and it's languages, so giving it slack is no longer an option. How many times has the fact that PHP hosting is cheaper than .net been mentioned by those who favour PHP, many times, yet do they give the .net hosts slack knowing they have to pay for more licensing or do they give microsoft slack for having to pay it's employees, no of course they don't and the same applies for being gentle on PHP, becuase it's not compiled.

You are completely right. In answering questions by others I have strayed from the path of the thread, and have begun giving opinions on the wrong subjects. (I even remember myself explaining the difference between loosely typed languages and strictly typed languages some time ago in this thread... )

On the subject of ASP.NET versus PHP I will agree - although I don't know everything about .NET and although I haven't tried it - that .NET is superior.

But (and there's always a but...), that doesn't mean I will personally be going to .NET sometime soon. I'm not gonna say why, because it doesn't have anything to do with the subject of this thread

Vincent

[mgkimsal]

You can program .NET for 0$. Companies can get setup with .NET for cheaper than any other application development environment. Web heads can program .NET for 0$.

You *could* program ASP with PerlScript too, but no one ever did. Whatever 'free' .net stuff there is which makes everyone so productive in the first place (editors, web matrix, whatever) only exist under Windows, which costs.

For MS shops, there will be very little (or in some cases $0) extra spent on doing .net stuff, but that doesn't mean that everyone can program .net stuff for $0 right off the bat. Those that try the BSD whatzits version won't have the tools which are what convince most people .net is so productivity-enhancing.

If you want to write DTS (data transformation) apps for each of your applications feel free. For us, that would mean literally hundreds of them kicking around, just to use something free, that isn't really free, that doesn't save us any time or effort and requires us to learn another dev environment.

Funny, we normally just write in and out of a SQL database to have two apps share data. I don't know why you're thinking you'd have to write DTS processes for *every app* just to have one extra Java or PHP (or whatever) app also solve a specific problem.

We're obviously talking about two different worlds here. Situations we've worked in MySQL, MSSQL Server and Oracle all played together nicely with PHP, and other apps in other languages also would connect to the Oracle and MSSQL boxes to do what they needed to do. We didn't have to convert every single app for over 400+ users and change thousands of lines of code to introduce a new platform into the mix.

There are enough other reasons to use .net technology - please stop trying to say cost is one. Well, 'cost' as you described your calculations, anyway. Nebulous 'retraining' costs are pretty hard to define, yet you've got hard figures mixed in there.

[Jeremy W.]

Sorry, but I've never heard of people saying developing your own Delphi applications costs $ becuase you can only have them on Windows. Users already own Windows. In fact, very few people don't own a windows workstation, even the Linux faithful. You can't tack on the cost.

As far as not needing DTS, fair enough. We run SQL Server, Clipper, FoxPro and Interbase DB's all over the place without too many DTS apps, but that is mainly because it's easy-ish to maintain the above. We're moving them all to SQL Server.

The reality is that for most major corporations, the cost of software is such a small % of the project budget that it is very nearly nil.

Why should I use PHP and MySQL when I can develop my web applications inside VS.NET using the same controls, same environment, etc?

It makes no sense to switch from .NET to PHP, we've already established that. We've also established that in the vast majority of cases, PHP is better for small applications, and that .NET is far superior for enterprise level sites.

Really, what more is there to argue about? You can argue the fact that PHP "can do" large enterprise stuff, "has" OO functionality and is "the most popular language", but that has a bit of the "me too" feel. It also sounds a little like me trying to defend IIS a couple of years ago. "It can be secure", "it hasn't been hacked to death yet", "it's the most popular web server".

[Jeremy W.]

Originally posted by mgkimsal
There are enough other reasons to use .net technology - please stop trying to say cost is one. Well, 'cost' as you described your calculations, anyway. Nebulous 'retraining' costs are pretty hard to define, yet you've got hard figures mixed in there.

I'm sorry, but cost is a very valid measurement. What cost is there to using .NET? You can get an IDE for free. You can get a web server for free. You can get a DBMS for free.

As I said, for the small scale developer, the only cost is really web hosting, which is something that's unavoidable.

[Mincer]

I think that cost should be completely removed from this equation. It is totally dependant on the users current situation.

I also think that the cross-platform part should be removed due to the fact that it's not currently available.

This means you have '4 reasons...'

Of course this means that .net wins out on the function libraries framework, but that's dependant on what you're developing anyway.

I say again for the millionth time. .NET is great. php is great. Whether it's great for you or not is up to you to decide. Me, I'll be using php as it's cheeper by miles...for me!

For you? Well, you'll have to 'suck it and see'....

...and chill out everyone.

[geraldartman]

Not only am I using the best development system in the world, but now as part of the largest unix community in the world, anything that only runs on wintel platforms is doomed.

The latest all-in-one flat screen wintel platform specs said it best, it runs games twice as fast. So the tide has turned again. Macs do genettic reseach at 15Mflops and wintel does games.

What's even nicer is that all the tools are in the box, apache, php development tools for Java/C/php. No cost other than the OS itself. And the OS works very well. Coming from a Mac background, I must say I do not always understand its Unix command system, but of course, I usually do not need to

[M. Johansson]

Originally posted by geraldartman
Not only am I using the best development system in the world, but now as part of the largest unix community in the world, anything that only runs on wintel platforms is doomed.

What exactly is the best development system in world, and why exactly is anything that runs on wintel platforms doomed? (A sidenote here: Software written for .NET technically runs on the .NET framework, not wintel)

The latest all-in-one flat screen wintel platform specs said it best, it runs games twice as fast. So the tide has turned again. Macs do genettic reseach at 15Mflops and wintel does games.

You don't need to bring operating systems and hardware into this discusson, it's complex enough already. We all know Mac OS X/BSD is an excellent OS that runs on excellent hardware (albeit not as cost-effective as PC:s).

What's even nicer is that all the tools are in the box, apache, php development tools for Java/C/php. No cost other than the OS itself. And the OS works very well. Coming from a Mac background, I must say I do not always understand its Unix command system, but of course, I usually do not need to

I'm sure Mac OS X is great, and I'm dying to test it, but with that said, XP also works very well, offers all the tools needed to develop, and has no cost except the OS itself for development.

The Shared Source .NET CLI from Microsoft compiles and runs on both Windows and BSD (which is the kernel of OS X) - making a .NET Framework for OSX should be childs play for Apple. It would also be a sound business choice for Apple to have OS X run .NET applications, since EVERY software for the Windows platform is intended to be .NET in the long run. If Apple had a .NET framework for OS X, they would be able to run the same applications as Windows on the same terms.

[jazz]

Well, I've read this whole thread...

I would say that 90% of the web programmers out there are people who taught themselves PHP as a means to make dynamic web pages. For the vast majority of webmasters and developers the difference between ASP.NET and PHP is non-existent because they will most likely write inefficient and "hacked together applications" anyway. To compare speed and performance of programming languages is like saying that if rode BikeX in the "Tour de France" instead of BikeY I would win the race. The fact is I wouldn't win the race with either because I don't have the ability or skill.

The same goes for the ASP.NET vs. PHP debate. A top-notch programmer like voostind may see small differences but for the vast majority of webdevelopers it's largely a question of personal preference.

For me personally, I am an visual artist who has somehow been dragged into the world of computing and I've found the opensource world a wonderful place to learn. ASP.NET and Visual BASIC etc. have always confused me, with all the colorful buttons which push my mind into "artist"/"spacial perception" mode. Using Nedit or nano to program PHP help me with my focus and force me to think rather than just "point and click".

This brings me to this criticism of most of the MS Products.

Microsoft products try to package complex things into a cushiony environment thus creating the illusion of a miracle tool. Simply "drag and drop" and you have the desired result without having to think and without having to learn.

This is not neccessarily a bad thing but it often leads people to rely too much on their tools and too little on their own brain power and imagination. Examples of this are Visual Basic, FrontPage, and Windows itself. It's a successful marketing strategy in todays "convience" culture, although it breeds a society of "anti-learning" and laziness.

The focus should NOT be on the tools but on the creativity of the artist.
That is what most people in this thread are forgetting.

[M. Johansson]

Hi Jazz!

That's a refreshing post - and a very insightful viewpoint. I'm looking forward to reading more of your posts in the future.

Originally posted by jazz
I would say that 90% of the web programmers out there are people who taught themselves PHP as a means to make dynamic web pages. For the vast majority of webmasters and developers the difference between ASP.NET and PHP is non-existent because they will most likely write inefficient and "hacked together applications" anyway. To compare speed and performance of programming languages is like saying that if rode BikeX in the "Tour de France" instead of BikeY I would win the race. The fact is I wouldn't win the race with either because I don't have the ability or skill.

Absolutely. You are head on with the bike analogy. Most of the competitors in Tour de France would probably kick all of our collective buttocks even if we used the best bike and they used crappy ones. But in competitions, those guys DO benefit from powerful tools.

For me personally, I am an visual artist who has somehow been dragged into the world of computing and I've found the opensource world a wonderful place to learn. ASP.NET and Visual BASIC etc. have always confused me, with all the colorful buttons which push my mind into "artist"/"spacial perception" mode. Using Nedit or nano to program PHP help me with my focus and force me to think rather than just "point and click".

This brings me to this criticism of most of the MS Products.

Microsoft products try to package complex things into a cushiony environment thus creating the illusion of a miracle tool. Simply "drag and drop" and you have the desired result without having to think and without having to learn.

Here, I disagree. Microsoft DOES have very powerful Development environments for producing applications. However, I really think you are overestimating it's WYSIWYG capabilities. When it comes to it, you have to write the code using your keyboard and figure out how to do it, even though you can use a grid to position your buttons. You cannot write a .NET application by dragging and dropping - not even close. And ASP.NET in itself has no "visual" characteristics whatsoever - many developers code it in Notepad, which is a perfectly adequate solution. You are in no way obligated to use Visual Environments.

And for the record, PHP simplifies more than ASP.NET.

This is not neccessarily a bad thing but it often leads people to rely too much on their tools and too little on their own brain power and imagination. Examples of this are Visual Basic, FrontPage, and Windows itself. It's a successful marketing strategy in todays "convience" culture, although it breeds a society of "anti-learning" and laziness.

Now, I have worked *very* little with Visual Basic, but besides the syntax being so eeeurrgh, I see no real problem with it. Hell, I don't even see what's "Visual" about it - it's just code. How does using it make you rely less on brain power and imagination - you still have to write the code, don't you?

Ok, don't get me wrong here, I dislike WYSIWYG (It never friggin works properly), but WYSIWYG is not an evil coming solely from Microsoft. Frontpage isn't really all that different from DreamWeaver. They still do the same thing - the difference is that DreamWeaver is generally better at it and doesn't reformat code you already have written. Otherwise, it's all about drag-n-drop.

And I don't see how replacing any part of Windows with "own brain power and imagination" would make me more productive.

The focus should NOT be on the tools but on the creativity of the artist.
That is what most people in this thread are forgetting. [/B]

Absolutely. The quality of the coder matters several times more than the tool. But ASP.NET is still a more powerful toolkit.

[jazz]

And I don't see how replacing any part of Windows with "own brain power and imagination" would make me more productive.

Well I guess that's the question productivity vs. learning the fundamentals. I firmly believe that the long way is the shortcut. And one cannot shortcut the fundamentals. And that's pretty much at the heart of all of Microsoft's applications. They have shortcuts for the fundamental tasks. This is fine for anybody who already understands the fundamentals but for somebody just learning programming it's a real bad idea. Because you basicially are thrown into advanced software development without understanding some of the basics. A solid understanding of the fundamentals will make you more productive in the long run and will aid in the mastery of the skill you are trying to obtain. The Microsoft way is to get you productive right away by basicially shortcutting essential fundamentals. This can lead to even worse software/web development. Hence my argument with FrontPage and Visual Basic.
(This argument can also be used with the Windows vs. *nix or MacOSX vs. FreeBSD discussions)

One of the reasons I liked PHP is that you start with something like:

<?php echo "Hello, I'm coding in PHP!"; ?>

and can progress into something more advanced like vBulletin or even "Amazon.com"-like websites. One can learn ASP like this as well but that's not what Microsoft is selling. What they sell is a false sense of ability and skipping all of the fundamental tasks. They don't sell the programming language but the tools that supposedly make things simpler.

The only reason I brought this up was the fact that many thought one of the major pluses of ASP.NET are tools like Web Matrix

In addition, I think for the vast majority of users looking to use some kind of server side scripting solution, most won't even use some of the advanced features of either language. People here are discussing how fundamentally OO PHP is or not. Most of the scripts I see barely use OO and I'm sure even the really large sites aren't 100% OO. I mean is everybody here getting offers from IBM to build their new corporate internet/intranet site?

The whole ASP.NET discussion has, however, sparked my interest, especially since it is seemingly free? But the question is should I progress into advanced PHP or learn the basics of ASP? I've already made the point that I think PHP and Opensource technologies (i.e. FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL) are excellent for beginners because they do not shortcut the fundamentals and teach you the basics first.

So why should I now move to ASP.NET? If Lufthansa and Deutsche Bank are running PHP based sites....that's probably as advanced as I'll ever get.

In conclusion, ASP.NET and PHP are both powerful tools in the right hands of a capable programmer. However, I believe that ASP.NET could lend a novice programmer to shortcut the fundamentals more so than with PHP. Which could lead to serious problems later on making that novice programmer less productive and more dependent on the tool.

[voostind]

Microsoft products try to package complex things into a cushiony environment thus creating the illusion of a miracle tool. Simply "drag and drop" and you have the desired result without having to think and without having to learn.

I don't want to blame it all on Microsoft. But there is certainly some truth in it. The product that proves this most to me is (Microsoft) Access. I do a lot of business with small to medium-sized companies, and they often use Access. What happened at some time in the past is that some employee/hobbyist wrote a small 'database application' to make his job easier. It's a small company so that sort of initiative is easily detected (and applauded). Before you know it, the whole company uses the database application and critical information is stored in it. This goes on for a while (maybe 2 or 3 years), after which the company decides to bring in a specialist (me! ), because the application has to be changed/extended, and the guy who did it earlier either doesn't work there anymore, or has no idea how to do what his boss wants. So I get to see such a database, and it is really, really bad, and it takes me lots and lots of hours to fix it.

The point is that it has now become very easy for people with no knowledge about computer science to design and develop software systems. That is not bad in itself, but as it turns out, those products eventually end up in companies. There are so many small companies out there that use a crappy system! At some point, that will become a problem, and a lot of money has to be spent to solve all problems. If they started out with a sound system from the start, the whole product would have been a lot cheaper.

But as I said, I'm not blaming Microsoft entirely. The step from this subject to my other usual rant on another software product (MySQL) is a small one, because it's based on the same premises. Because it exists, people will use it, with crappy software as a result.

Vincent

[HarryF]

I do a lot of business with small to medium-sized companies, and they often use Access.

Want another job?

Add "large" to that list of company types building systems on Access. We're joyfully running mission critical systems on Access, written by some airline pilots We're paying the price. Comparing MySQL to Access, at least MySQL doesn't come with a language for writing programs with.

Microsoft are into "cloaking" technologies, from their operating system, their development tools and even the way they describe technologies (ones they don't own) in their developer resources. Everything has that peculiar MS slant: ask no questions get no lies.

My belief people who start with PHP and stick with it will end up learning more about software development than those that go the MS way. Some of the things PHP gets criticised most for are also what make it a great language to learn with: the ability to write procedural code for example. PHP often re-invents the wheel, software wise (like allowing procedural code in an age where OO is standard) and in doing so developers get to see exactly why things like object orientation are important.

[neil100]

Originally posted by jazz


Well I guess that's the question productivity vs. learning the fundamentals. I firmly believe that the long way is the shortcut. And one cannot shortcut the fundamentals. And that's pretty much at the heart of all of Microsoft's applications. They have shortcuts for the fundamental tasks. This is fine for anybody who already understands the fundamentals but for somebody just learning programming it's a real bad idea. Because you basicially are thrown into advanced software development without understanding some of the basics. A solid understanding of the fundamentals will make you more productive in the long run and will aid in the mastery of the skill you are trying to obtain. The Microsoft way is to get you productive right away by basicially shortcutting essential fundamentals. This can lead to even worse software/web development. Hence my argument with FrontPage and Visual Basic.
(This argument can also be used with the Windows vs. *nix or MacOSX vs. FreeBSD discussions)

One of the reasons I liked PHP is that you start with something like:

<?php echo "Hello, I'm coding in PHP!"; ?>

and can progress into something more advanced like vBulletin or even "Amazon.com"-like websites. One can learn ASP like this as well but that's not what Microsoft is selling. What they sell is a false sense of ability and skipping all of the fundamental tasks. They don't sell the programming language but the tools that supposedly make things simpler.

I agree in respect to things like Access and Frontpage, but in respect to .net which is what this thread is about I would have to disagree. Firstly how many people that don't know the fundamentals of programming splash out on Visual Studio the standard tool for .net, not many. Microsoft do not expect people to skip the fundamentals, you just have to look at the books for .net, C#, VB.net that they publish they all teach the fundamentals, Microsoft simply sell effiecency, why should I go to the command line and type in the text to compile a .net application when I can easily click the mouse a couple of times and get Visual Studio to compile it in a tenth of the time. If Microsoft believe people do not need to know the fundamentals, why do they package sample chapters from there books on things like OO programming etc?

The way you learn ASP is the same as you learn PHP, PHP starts with echo and .net begins with Console.Writeline(), what Microsoft is selling is effiency and ease of use for people who know what they are doing.

[neil100]

Originally posted by HarryF

Microsoft are into "cloaking" technologies, from their operating system, their development tools and even the way they describe technologies (ones they don't own) in their developer resources. Everything has that peculiar MS slant: ask no questions get no lies.

Yep Microsoft are sneaky.

Originally posted by HarryF

My belief people who start with PHP and stick with it will end up learning more about software development than those that go the MS way. Some of the things PHP gets criticised most for are also what make it a great language to learn with: the ability to write procedural code for example. PHP often re-invents the wheel, software wise (like allowing procedural code in an age where OO is standard) and in doing so developers get to see exactly why things like object orientation are important.

Most people that learn PHP will never write any software in there life, even the few that do it will probably be in C++, Delphi or Java. Every single person who learns a .net language or Java the correct way will know more about software development than someone who just learns PHP, after all you are meant to get a solid grounding in Java, before even looking at JSP and the same goes for C# and asp.net, in learning these languages people will at the very least write a very simple text editor or graphics editor, learn about OO theory, the basics of UML and how to distribute the completed application, things you will not learn through PHP (unless you decide to look at PHP-GTK, but then why bother learn C++, Delphi or Java instead).

[HarryF]

Most people that learn PHP will never write any software in there life, even the few that do it will probably be in C++, Delphi or Java. Every single person who learns a .net language or Java the correct way will know more about software development than someone who just learns PHP, after all you are meant to get a solid grounding in Java, before even looking at JSP and the same goes for C# and asp.net, in learning these languages people will at the very least write a very simple text editor or graphics editor, learn about OO theory, the basics of UML and how to distribute the completed application, things you will not learn through PHP

So you're saying the only way to learn about software development is by being a software developer. I completely disagree.

Most people who learn PHP will write software, albiet perhaps only for their own purposes on their own web site. But it's still software. In in building a site with PHP as their first programming language, they'll encounter problems which if they follow up will take them into OO thoery, UML, N-Tier etc. etc. Furthermore, PHP developers will learn by mistakes and have real first hand experience of why things like OO is important. Developers taught to recite theory first won't see the wood for the trees until they step out of the rules they've been taught and found out why those rules were important in the first place.

Java / .NET remain in many ways inaccessible to those with no programming experience. Even if you learn how to use the web matrix GUI editor, the Microsoft way will mean you'll never really

[dhtmlgod]

I fail to see how ASP.NET is more inaccessible as PHP to none programmers...

[Jeremy W.]

I think the key statement in Harry's post is "if they follow it up". The same could be said of anything. The reality, though, is that if you develop a single decent application in .NET or Java, then you have "learned" how to develop software. It's rather difficult not to, as you'll encounter a whole host of problems your first time.

So, yes, perhaps .NET and Java are more inaccessible to non programmers, but then again maybe not. I mean, if you're using any of the IDE's for either of the above, I'd have to say you could easily start writing applications and learning in under an hour. I mean, decent applications as well.

Even if there wasn't though, who cares how inaccessible it is. I mean, really. I don't agree that they are, but really who cares. Architecture isn't very "accessible". Law isn't very "accessible". Medicine isn't very "accessible". Why should programming be?

Personally I find .NET to be the most accessible platform I've ever developed on or tried to learn. That's me though, the word isn't accessibility, the word is ease of learning, and for each person that will be different based on their strengths, weaknesses, experience and even frame of mind when they sit down to learn.

[jazz]

Firstly how many people that don't know the fundamentals of programming splash out on Visual Studio the standard tool for .net, not many.

Well if I interpret that as meaning you think that most people who will be using ASP.NET will be seasoned/experienced programmers, I disagree. Because MS tries to appeal to newbies and non-programmers, just check out quotes from ASP.NET:

Writing dynamic, high-performance Web applications has never been easier...
Easy Programming Model. ASP.NET makes building real world Web applications dramatically easier. ASP.NET server controls enable an HTML-like style of declarative programming that let you build great pages with far less code than with classic ASP. Displaying data, validating user input, and uploading files are all amazingly easy.

Does that sound like they are pitching their product to experienced programmers?
PHP does not advertise it's "easiness" or put some flashy GUI at the top of their web page.

Many newbies and non-programmers will look at ASP.NET and will think it's easier to learn than PHP. It may be that ASP.NET is just as easy to learn as PHP, but....
The way that Microsoft packages most of its products, lends itself to a dependence on that tool and could leave novice programmers without proper insight of the fundamentals of programming.

why should I go to the command line and type in the text to compile a .net application when I can easily click the mouse a couple of times and get Visual Studio to compile it in a tenth of the time.

That may be fine for an experienced user but a newbie may not even know what's going on when they push that button.

[Jeremy W.]

The quote above was "how many people that don't know the fundamentals of programming splash out on Visual Studio "

Your post doesn't really answer that

As far as making complex things simple. Sure, yeah, that's what the Save button is, that's what the WordArt feature is in Word... Not knowing what's going on behind the scenes isn't bad.

That said though, you can't do ANYTHING in .NET without programming. So, what does VS.NET, and much of .NET do, hides the complex stuff until you need it. What's so bad about that? PHP does the same thing.