constructive antagony
Despite the foaming at the mouth of some of the more ardent supporters of one side or the other, the old wars (vi/emacs, Fortran/Pascal, C/C++) actually drove innovation on both sides. The anger always comes out of a hidden envy: Dang, they ARE better than us in this respect. We better do something about it!
Where it goes awry is when this healthy "look over your shoulder, they are catching up" turns into an outright inferiority complex. That's what happened when every Linux desktop tried to copy every single folly of Windows, and hid the command line away as far as possible, because it might frighten the poor dumb user.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
