[jaeusm]

In it, he says that although it may SEEM appealing to work for a company and earn money, in the end, it tends to hold you back creatively, to the point where you become disenchanted with your position.

Everyone has an opinion, but it is based largely on personal experience. This is definitely not an issue for me, or anyone else on my team, especially concerning creativity. Every company and development team works differently. However, I'm fortunate to work in a highly flexible environment.

You, my friend, have a lot to learn about developing for corporations and the human psyche.

That's ironic coming from you

Can someone say GTK? Maybe QT?

You're definitely not a software developer.

Microsoft treats their developers better than their end users. When I was in grad school, I used Debian exclusively. I hated booting into Windows for anything. After spending time in the industry developing professionally, my attitude toward Microsoft changed quite a bit. Other than doing embedded work, there's no other platform I'd rather develop for. The tools, the framework (.NET), and the support are currently better than anything else available. Of course, this isn't apparent to you because you haven't experienced it yourself. I can sympathize with you somewhat. I probably would have rejected any positive comments about Microsoft when I was in school.

Edit: I looked up that blog entry you mentioned, and with respect to your comment about becoming disenchanted with a position, he's right. Writing code for financial institutions will drain the life out of you because it is exceedingly boring. There is little room for creativity in that job.