> this was the opposite of 20 years ago

perhaps I should have put that other part in quotes. that was the refrain from mac-bashers at the time (well, one of them). Everything revolved around windows ecosystem, it had the developer mindshare and market strength, etc.

It's not the same story today.

asp.net core 1 is cross platform, using visual studio code you can now build lots without visual studio... but not older enterprise projects of course and or visual projects.