5 ms·

Bias towards Windows is an interesting one. As someone who programmed on Windows for 9 years, I got away with writing code in IDEs and since most apps had GUI a

by oxplot 11y ago

Bias towards Windows is an interesting one. As someone who programmed on Windows for 9 years, I got away with writing code in IDEs and since most apps had GUI and command line was less than worthless, I was never exposed to simple tools that could be chained together under a minute that one had to spend hours either writing, or looking for a software that did the same in Windows. It wasn't until I started college, where I had to use Linux to get my assignments done, etc. that my mind got stretched open. In three months I couldn't believe I survived in Windows for that long. As an employer, the fact that someone has only ever developed in Windows and also uses Windows at home, tells me that at best they can appreciate unix and unix philosophy, but that it's unlikely they could build tools that do the right thing and play well in a unix environment, no matter how many years of experience they've had building tools. But not only that, unix goes deeper and teaches you about how to do things inside your program, even if that part never talks to other programs. Things like do the dumb thing first; or when you have nothing to say, say nothing (e.g. `ls` prints nothing if no files found), etc. It's about mindset and values and those are almost always dictated by the environment. Also values cannot be looked up on stackoverflow and copy/pasted in 5 minutes. They take a long time to sink in and I can understand why an employer would want to skip that cost when hiring.

Fradow 11y ago
I second that. When I was a student, I use MS stack a lot and sweared by it, but never really got to use the command line, since everything could be done faster using the GUI, and the command line had no benefits I could possibly see at the time. I had to really use it when I started to do automated builds, and since then it opened my mind on the value of command line and above all the unix philosophy, which I really consider as super important now. If I had to hire, I'd be relunctant to hire someone with Windows-only experience, not because I think the stack is bad, but because it's unlikely this person adhere to the Unix philosophy and is able to write scripts for small tasks, and automate important tasks with scripts.
wolfgke 11y ago
> But not only that, unix goes deeper and teaches you about how to do things inside your program, even if that part never talks to other programs. Things like do the dumb thing first; or when you have nothing to say, say nothing (e.g. `ls` prints nothing if no files found), etc. It's about mindset and values and those are almost always dictated by the environment. Also values cannot be looked up on stackoverflow and copy/pasted in 5 minutes. They take a long time to sink in and I can understand why an employer would want to skip that cost when hiring. Also Windows teaches you values that are not appreciated by UNIX wizards: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html "Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers." (really: read the whole article!)
- oxplot 11y ago
  It's not that unix folks don't appreciate it, but that it's not clear what to appreciate. From solely a personal standpoint, years of both using and programming on Windows taught me nothing about its values. However, I can talk about Apple and its values for hours and I've never owned anything Apple except its keyboard. Joel, the author of the article you linked to, states the core value of Windows as being "useful to non-programmers" basing it on "By contrast, Windows was created with one goal only: to sell as many copies as conceivable at a profit". The former does not follow from the latter. Microsoft didn't need to rely on usefulness to anyone to sell many copies, and they didn't. As for why Linux isn't non-programmer friendly, I beg to differ. Android is a prime example and the argument as to why it's not doing well on desktop, as Linus Torvalds puts it, is because no one ships Linux on their desktops. Microsoft has a lot to do with that. When and if they ever do, Aunt Marge will be as happy using Linux without even knowing it's Linux (does the average non-programmer know that Android is Linux?)
  - mdpopescu 11y ago
    "Aunt Marge will be as happy using Linux without even knowing it's Linux" Unless she wants to print something... [1] [1] http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html
    - bmaupin 11y ago
      A lot's changed since 2006... "1. Make sure the printer is turned on. 2. Connect the printer to your system... 3. A message will appear when the system is finished installing the printer..." https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-setup.html https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-setup.ht...
    - e15ctr0n 11y ago
      You know that was written over a decade ago, right? Clearly, you're not using a Linux-based desktop on a daily basis, so please stop spreading FUD.
  - 11y ago
zo1 11y ago
If anything, using a non-windows OS teaches you about being able to even "navigate" a command-line, or understand basic concepts such as file-paths. Such as "../" or relative vs absolute paths, what "/" means, etc. I'm amazed at how often such things are missed and never understood, even by individuals who are in the "maintenance" side of IT and have bazillions of "certs" for everything from networking to administration.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  "Windows greybeards" who originally came from DOS also know the whole thing about navigation etc. I admit that for a long time (before Powershell was introduced) the default shells of GNU/Linux were far better than cmd.exe of Windows NT (not even to speak of command.com of Windows 9x). Whether with Powershell this is still the case or not is yours to decide.

by oxplot 11y ago

Fradow 11y ago

I second that. When I was a student, I use MS stack a lot and sweared by it, but never really got to use the command line, since everything could be done faster using the GUI, and the command line had no benefits I could possibly see at the time. I had to really use it when I started to do automated builds, and since then it opened my mind on the value of command line and above all the unix philosophy, which I really consider as super important now. If I had to hire, I'd be relunctant to hire someone with Windows-only experience, not because I think the stack is bad, but because it's unlikely this person adhere to the Unix philosophy and is able to write scripts for small tasks, and automate important tasks with scripts.

wolfgke 11y ago

> But not only that, unix goes deeper and teaches you about how to do things inside your program, even if that part never talks to other programs. Things like do the dumb thing first; or when you have nothing to say, say nothing (e.g. `ls` prints nothing if no files found), etc. It's about mindset and values and those are almost always dictated by the environment. Also values cannot be looked up on stackoverflow and copy/pasted in 5 minutes. They take a long time to sink in and I can understand why an employer would want to skip that cost when hiring. Also Windows teaches you values that are not appreciated by UNIX wizards: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Biculturalism.html "Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers." (really: read the whole article!)

oxplot 11y ago
It's not that unix folks don't appreciate it, but that it's not clear what to appreciate. From solely a personal standpoint, years of both using and programming on Windows taught me nothing about its values. However, I can talk about Apple and its values for hours and I've never owned anything Apple except its keyboard. Joel, the author of the article you linked to, states the core value of Windows as being "useful to non-programmers" basing it on "By contrast, Windows was created with one goal only: to sell as many copies as conceivable at a profit". The former does not follow from the latter. Microsoft didn't need to rely on usefulness to anyone to sell many copies, and they didn't. As for why Linux isn't non-programmer friendly, I beg to differ. Android is a prime example and the argument as to why it's not doing well on desktop, as Linus Torvalds puts it, is because no one ships Linux on their desktops. Microsoft has a lot to do with that. When and if they ever do, Aunt Marge will be as happy using Linux without even knowing it's Linux (does the average non-programmer know that Android is Linux?)
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  "Aunt Marge will be as happy using Linux without even knowing it's Linux" Unless she wants to print something... [1] [1] http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html
  - bmaupin 11y ago
    A lot's changed since 2006... "1. Make sure the printer is turned on. 2. Connect the printer to your system... 3. A message will appear when the system is finished installing the printer..." https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-setup.html https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-setup.ht...
  - e15ctr0n 11y ago
    You know that was written over a decade ago, right? Clearly, you're not using a Linux-based desktop on a daily basis, so please stop spreading FUD.
- 11y ago

zo1 11y ago

If anything, using a non-windows OS teaches you about being able to even "navigate" a command-line, or understand basic concepts such as file-paths. Such as "../" or relative vs absolute paths, what "/" means, etc. I'm amazed at how often such things are missed and never understood, even by individuals who are in the "maintenance" side of IT and have bazillions of "certs" for everything from networking to administration.

wolfgke 11y ago
"Windows greybeards" who originally came from DOS also know the whole thing about navigation etc. I admit that for a long time (before Powershell was introduced) the default shells of GNU/Linux were far better than cmd.exe of Windows NT (not even to speak of command.com of Windows 9x). Whether with Powershell this is still the case or not is yours to decide.