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I'm a long time Microsoft user, sure I dabbled with Linux in my youth, but I never quite got into the tinkering culture and having to spend a day per month in c

I'm a long time Microsoft user, sure I dabbled with Linux in my youth, but I never quite got into the tinkering culture and having to spend a day per month in configuring to make things work the way I wanted just wasn't me. Professionaly I'm now in management but the majority of my development experience had been with .Net. Sure I dabbled with all the open source hyped techs when I was younger, but ultimately settled for .Net and enterprise (which I'm happy is also open sourced now by the way, even if .net core isn't really production ready and takes up way too much devops time to deploy). These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon. And now you're telling me the life expediency of a surface is 2 years. Heh.

vcjohnson 9y ago
Personally love .NET and Visual Studio development, especially when I was forced back into Java recently. I'm not a huge fan of Windows 10 and but I really would love to stay in the development ecosystem for the foreseeable future. That being said if they ever put out a fully functional VS for linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
sjellis 9y ago
"These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon." You are being far too polite :) It is not you: Windows is fine as a launcher for consumer applications, but for setup of development tools, it is appallingly terrible, and outside .NET the user experience with developer tools can be pretty rough. For many things, it is now a third-class platform (Mac is first, then Linux). I definitely agree with Git, specifically. This isn't Microsoft's fault: Git is so UNIX-y that you have to wrap it in a kind of miny-UNIX distribution to run it on a non-UNIX platform, but they are the only desktop vendor with a non-UNIX platform. I am looking forward to having an opportunity to work with WSL, to see how much that helps.
- Garvey 9y ago
  What are your issues with git on Windows? Not sure why you feel Windows is "appallingly terrible" for set up of development tools either? Care to expand on why this is the case? Genuinely curious, if only becasue I don't have these problems...
  - jbob2000 9y ago
    Git isn't the problem, per se. It's a barebones tool that, on Unix systems, gets paired with a very powerful terminal. The command prompt on Windows is useless garbage by comparison. You pretty much need to use a GUI with Git on windows because command prompt is so bad. Aside from that, window management is awful on Windows (ironic?). Alt tab is kinda stupid, you can't scroll windows behind the active window, the taskbar and start menu are generally a mess, and god help you if you have multiple monitors.
    - hungerstrike 9y ago
      Why would you want to use archaic CLI commands instead of a modern GUI though? In my 8 or so years of using GIT on Windows, there's nothing that I couldn't do through my preferred GUI. Anyway, window management is great on Windows. It's definitely more robust than the Mac OS and more stable than whatever minority Linux desktop you're using. And alt tab is definitely not stupid and if it were, it would certainly not be because of some lack of scrolling because nobody wants to scroll stuff while they're alt tabbing. Also, the start screen is better than anything and not messy at all. I can't even organize the equivalent on my Mac the way that I want to. Windows handling of multiple monitors is better than any other OS too and way more stable.
      - slindz 9y ago
        Is your last name Ballmer by chance?
        hungerstrike 9y ago
pawadu 9y ago
> but I never quite got into the tinkering culture off topic (bikeshedding?) comment: you don't need to tinker with linux: install ubuntu, use it, profit. At work we went from "windows 8 + osx" to "ubuntu + windows 10". Nobody tinkers with anything and everything just works. Its just a bit faster and cheaper now.
- eksemplar 9y ago
  I've run ubuntu, had to write a small startup script to turn off one of my two graphics cards to save power. It was relatively easy and the ubuntu forums were really helpful, but it's things like that that I don't want to have to do.
na85 9y ago
>configuring to make things work the way I wanted just wasn't me. You must be one of the lucky few whose workflows jive well with what Windows enforces. I personally have never been able to get Windows to work the way I want.

vcjohnson 9y ago

Personally love .NET and Visual Studio development, especially when I was forced back into Java recently. I'm not a huge fan of Windows 10 and but I really would love to stay in the development ecosystem for the foreseeable future. That being said if they ever put out a fully functional VS for linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

sjellis 9y ago

"These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon." You are being far too polite :) It is not you: Windows is fine as a launcher for consumer applications, but for setup of development tools, it is appallingly terrible, and outside .NET the user experience with developer tools can be pretty rough. For many things, it is now a third-class platform (Mac is first, then Linux). I definitely agree with Git, specifically. This isn't Microsoft's fault: Git is so UNIX-y that you have to wrap it in a kind of miny-UNIX distribution to run it on a non-UNIX platform, but they are the only desktop vendor with a non-UNIX platform. I am looking forward to having an opportunity to work with WSL, to see how much that helps.

Garvey 9y ago
What are your issues with git on Windows? Not sure why you feel Windows is "appallingly terrible" for set up of development tools either? Care to expand on why this is the case? Genuinely curious, if only becasue I don't have these problems...
- jbob2000 9y ago
  Git isn't the problem, per se. It's a barebones tool that, on Unix systems, gets paired with a very powerful terminal. The command prompt on Windows is useless garbage by comparison. You pretty much need to use a GUI with Git on windows because command prompt is so bad. Aside from that, window management is awful on Windows (ironic?). Alt tab is kinda stupid, you can't scroll windows behind the active window, the taskbar and start menu are generally a mess, and god help you if you have multiple monitors.
  - hungerstrike 9y ago
    Why would you want to use archaic CLI commands instead of a modern GUI though? In my 8 or so years of using GIT on Windows, there's nothing that I couldn't do through my preferred GUI. Anyway, window management is great on Windows. It's definitely more robust than the Mac OS and more stable than whatever minority Linux desktop you're using. And alt tab is definitely not stupid and if it were, it would certainly not be because of some lack of scrolling because nobody wants to scroll stuff while they're alt tabbing. Also, the start screen is better than anything and not messy at all. I can't even organize the equivalent on my Mac the way that I want to. Windows handling of multiple monitors is better than any other OS too and way more stable.
    - slindz 9y ago
      Is your last name Ballmer by chance?
      - hungerstrike 9y ago

pawadu 9y ago

> but I never quite got into the tinkering culture off topic (bikeshedding?) comment: you don't need to tinker with linux: install ubuntu, use it, profit. At work we went from "windows 8 + osx" to "ubuntu + windows 10". Nobody tinkers with anything and everything just works. Its just a bit faster and cheaper now.

eksemplar 9y ago
I've run ubuntu, had to write a small startup script to turn off one of my two graphics cards to save power. It was relatively easy and the ubuntu forums were really helpful, but it's things like that that I don't want to have to do.

na85 9y ago

>configuring to make things work the way I wanted just wasn't me. You must be one of the lucky few whose workflows jive well with what Windows enforces. I personally have never been able to get Windows to work the way I want.