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"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

"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
        There's no call for that here. Nothing about my comment says that I'm a shill or that I work for Microsoft. Please look again at my response and compare it to the comment that I was responding to. I answered each claim or opinion in like fashion. Should I have instead asked that person if they were Linus Torvalds?
        slindz 9y ago
        You're right. I regret my careless barb. I wish I was able to reply to your comment as well as jbob2000 did. His point-by-point reply summarizes my understanding of reality perfectly.
        hungerstrike 9y ago
        And my point-by-point reply to that summarizes reality as it actually is.
    - jbob2000 9y ago
      >Why would you want to use archaic CLI commands instead of a modern GUI though? Because on Unix systems, the CLI commands are not archaic and you can move way faster than a GUI using them. > 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 I'm comparing it to Mac. The gestures a mac laptop provides make window management very smooth. The keyboard shortcuts and mouse movements required to replicate this on Windows aren't the same. MacOS remembers my multi-monitor window placement, yet every time I unplug and re-plug in my windows laptop from my monitors, I have to drag all the windows back to their monitors. >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 It's a jumbled mess of colours and rectangles. The old school start menu is just as bad - nesting folders upon folders, hunting pixels so you click the right spot. It's just an old school way to manage computing that many people are used to and therefore think is better.

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
      There's no call for that here. Nothing about my comment says that I'm a shill or that I work for Microsoft. Please look again at my response and compare it to the comment that I was responding to. I answered each claim or opinion in like fashion. Should I have instead asked that person if they were Linus Torvalds?
      - slindz 9y ago
        You're right. I regret my careless barb. I wish I was able to reply to your comment as well as jbob2000 did. His point-by-point reply summarizes my understanding of reality perfectly.
        hungerstrike 9y ago
        And my point-by-point reply to that summarizes reality as it actually is.
  - jbob2000 9y ago
    >Why would you want to use archaic CLI commands instead of a modern GUI though? Because on Unix systems, the CLI commands are not archaic and you can move way faster than a GUI using them. > 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 I'm comparing it to Mac. The gestures a mac laptop provides make window management very smooth. The keyboard shortcuts and mouse movements required to replicate this on Windows aren't the same. MacOS remembers my multi-monitor window placement, yet every time I unplug and re-plug in my windows laptop from my monitors, I have to drag all the windows back to their monitors. >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 It's a jumbled mess of colours and rectangles. The old school start menu is just as bad - nesting folders upon folders, hunting pixels so you click the right spot. It's just an old school way to manage computing that many people are used to and therefore think is better.