Scott seems to be very excited about this and very happy that he can formally declare himself to be a developer and have it done with, but I can't disagree more. You shouldn't have to formally declare yourself as a developer, because there are a lot of developers and programmers and power users who are not formally developers. If I click "developer mode" and I formally declare myself as a developer, that's a lie because I am not.

I've won awards at work before for creating scripts to automate a certain part of our team's workflow, saving hours each time we have to perform a certain action. But if I was a formal developer, that would just be my job. I'd get no special recognition for it. But I did get special recognition, because I am not a developer by trade.

I don't want to make a formal declaration that I am a developer because formally, I am not. But I'd like to side load apps, see the full path, use Remote Desktop (is that a developer thing? Always seemed like more of a sysadmin thing, I use it every day) and keep my PC awake all the time.

None of those things are developer-specific features. None of them include "install gcc++" or "download Visual Studio" or "change Notepad to vim". What I'd rather make is a formal declaration that I own this computer, not that I am a software developer.

- edit - apparently everyone replying to me failed to read the article. My response is not to Microsoft's decision to call it "developer mode" but Scott's decision to call it a "formal declaration that I'm a developer".