I'm genuinely curious and I'm not being antagonistic, but why do you call them top-notch if they refuse to learn and shy away from a problem that should be (to them) relatively easy?

Because they are the best at what they do?

Someone are just the best programmer in Windows/Visual Studio environment. And being "top-notch" should not be reserved to only those who use command line.

I think he was referring to the "top notch" developers being unwilling to learn, which to me would disqualify them from the category of "top notch", no matter what how good they are at using their preferred toolset. I'm curious, if they are so resistant to learning new things, how well do they deal with changes in MSVS? Like for instance going from 2008 to 2010, the solution file format changed (and the importer is far from perfect), and things were moved around in the GUI.

I have an immensely hard time believing someone is the "best programmer in VS" without knowing how to use more advanced tools.

Because you can't learn everything under the sky. Most of them are strictly Windows programmers, with lots of console (video game) experience. They are just not interrested in Linux, OSX, etc the way other people are (me for example).

What's the point for them to learn something like this, if they don't see how this is going to help them in what they do?

Maybe he's talking about notches on the pay scale ;)

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." —Inigo Montoya

Slightly off topic: May I ask you what's wrong with XML (as long as it is used for what it's meant?).

The syntax. I can't stand the fact that I have to close a tag with the same name. S-expr (lisp), Lua, Json are much visually better (IMHO) way to express that. And readable (again IMHO).