Bikeshedding
Isn't this true of other groups as well? We all fight over the issues with which we're most intimately and constantly familiar. Emacs vs. vi is our version of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Another metaphor is the infamous bikeshed. Nobody wants to argue about the design of a nuclear power plant, because that's complicated and hard and requires a lot of knowledge, but everyone has an opinion on what color the bikeshed at that plant should be. Perhaps the general tendencies of programmers - highly focused, introverted, a bit brittle - make this somewhat worse than elsewhere, but mostly it just seems like human nature.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
