Do programmers hate Microsoft? I always thought/perceived that MS treated their developer community well.

MS-hating opinions come from the old times of IE6 and practices like FUD, EEE. A lot has changed since then but this hate still shows up sometimes.

There's an interesting article about this by Scott Hanselman titled "Microsoft Killed My Pappy": http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx

I found some of the reactions on hn and slashdot way more insightful than the blog post itself, which to me is half euphemism, half strawman, and 100% condescending.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281283

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/1628259/microsoft-kil...

There are 2 types of programmers... Programmer that 100% embrace MS using the .NET Stack, Visual Studio, and outlaying the Tens of Thousands of Dollars need to support that development model

And programmers that want to use Open Source/Open Standards... The Open Source/open Standards programmers hate MS because they MS views Open Source has a threat and the enemy (although they are starting to be less hostile over the last couple years)

Sarcasm or something right

Yes. And they haven't changed. See their slimy Android extortion techniques which taxes millions of smartphones based on some highly questionable patents and also their recent FUD-based ad campaigns.

Yeah, I love MS. I hate their licensing (too complex), and think they've not had a spotless track record, but compared to Oracle and Apple they're definitely in the good guys camp.

    for ["Microsoft", "Oracle"]
      {print  "We hateses ~a. \n
              Dirty nasty stinking ~a took our precious."}

In days of yore, the big three personalities were Gates, Jobs, and Ellison because those with an interest in creating lists of villains and heroes were inclined to hedge there bets - Gates alone might not be enough a villain for their shining knight. But then, and even more so now, Oracle and Ellison never had enough popular culture mindshare to make the Slam Books of those who keep slam books but for a narrow segment of an echoing technical community much of which didn't like Java when it still lived under Sun, anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam_book

What language is that?

at least get your programming right before throwing insults.

"Oracle and Ellison never had enough popular culture mindshare to make the Slam Books"

I suspect with countless billions he doesn't much give a damn about your "slam book"

It's worse than that. I don't hate Microsoft or Oracle anymore. I'm completely apathetic. In my work I never have to touch either of their products.

The opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy.

Then whats the opposite of hate?