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For the HN crowd, the Linux Subsystem for Windows is kind of a big deal - many traditional Windows annoyances are ameliorated when you've got a Bash shell. Pen

For the HN crowd, the Linux Subsystem for Windows is kind of a big deal - many traditional Windows annoyances are ameliorated when you've got a Bash shell. Pen input is a) available and b) very good. The split control panel is a bit gross, but it's also a reasonable compromise - novice users get a greatly simplified interface for basic settings, while experienced users keep a familiar interface for more complex configuration. The driver situation has massively improved, with the vast majority of devices being genuinely plug-and-play; hardware compatibility on Windows is still leagues ahead of Linux or OSX. Task and workspace switching works really well and the task timeline is a very useful improvement. More broadly, I think that OSX has been moving backwards while Windows has been moving forwards. It's purely subjective, but I think that OSX has an increasing number of nasty and persistent bugs. Windows is an inherently more complex platform, but Microsoft just seem to care more about software quality and the developer experience. VS Code is emblematic of what's happening within Microsoft - it's the best new text editor in recent years, it's freely licensed in full and the dev team are highly responsive to feedback and bug reports. Windows is still occasionally quite annoying and has gained a few new annoyances with the move towards touch, but the proportion of stuff that Just Works seems to improve with every major update. My current dev machine has been running Windows 10 since launch without a reinstall or a BSOD. I'd probably be running Ubuntu if I didn't need a few key pieces of proprietary software, but using Windows really isn't much of a hardship. I loathed XP and 7, but I cheerfully tolerate Windows 10. It's not my dream OS, but it has never ruined my day.

PascLeRasc 8y ago
The Windows bash shell would be a lot better if you could interact with files on your normal Windows filesystem, like Desktop and Dropbox, and vice versa with opening files you made in Bash in Atom outside.
- lediur 8y ago
  You can do that in WSL already - the Windows drives are mounted and writable through the Linux file system as /mnt/c, /mnt/d, and so on. You can use Linux executables to create, delete, and modify files just as you'd expect with any file system mount (without some Linux-specific concepts like permissions). With WSL, I've been able to run Linux-based dev and build tools and Windows IDEs at the same time on source stored in the Windows world with no issues. On the other hand, it's true that you can't / shouldn't modify files on the Linux file system (i.e. Files outside of /mnt/...) in Windows itself since the Linux-specific concepts would get mangled. With the mounts though, there shouldn't be any need to do this.

PascLeRasc 8y ago

The Windows bash shell would be a lot better if you could interact with files on your normal Windows filesystem, like Desktop and Dropbox, and vice versa with opening files you made in Bash in Atom outside.

lediur 8y ago
You can do that in WSL already - the Windows drives are mounted and writable through the Linux file system as /mnt/c, /mnt/d, and so on. You can use Linux executables to create, delete, and modify files just as you'd expect with any file system mount (without some Linux-specific concepts like permissions). With WSL, I've been able to run Linux-based dev and build tools and Windows IDEs at the same time on source stored in the Windows world with no issues. On the other hand, it's true that you can't / shouldn't modify files on the Linux file system (i.e. Files outside of /mnt/...) in Windows itself since the Linux-specific concepts would get mangled. With the mounts though, there shouldn't be any need to do this.