To me, the aesthetic of *nixes is the way everything is neatly arranged around the same set of relatively simple abstractions: executables, shell scripts, processes and text files. Yes, there's a learning curve, but once you're around the bend it's pretty flat. Skills are generally general -- once you know how to do X, chances are you've touched a great deal of the tools you need to Y.<p>Windows is somewhat simple (but unreliable) on the outside, and completely inaccessible on the inside. If you want to interact with the innards of Windows, there's somethings you can do in the registry, some things you need Scripting Host for, some things can be done in .NET, others you need COM for. Documentation for these things are spotty (you might find a guide for doing something in COM, in C++, and need to pair that with another guide on how to do COM in .NET). The learning curve maybe isn't as steep, but it keeps its inclination all the way to the wall you're bound to hit. There's little generality in skills -- once you know how to do X, you're still almost all the way back to square one on how to do Y.