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Working with Windows mainly it always amazes me how powerful the command line tools in Linux are. Most Windows programmers don't know much about command line so

Working with Windows mainly it always amazes me how powerful the command line tools in Linux are. Most Windows programmers don't know much about command line so downloading some files is a huge affair. If you know curl it's just so easy.

deleted 8y ago
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saagarjha 8y ago
That’s why I find it hard to convince people how annoying it is to use Windows for software development. It’s hard to miss what you aren’t aware of.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  Funny, those of us who enjoy using Windows (esp. Visual Studio) for dev but are aware of how powerful command line tools are find it hard to convince you guys of the reverse in exactly the same way. We don't get the feeling you know what you're missing out on either. ;)
  - adiM 8y ago
    Is there a difference between Visual Studio's Windows and Linux versions?
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      Visual studio and visual studio code are two very different products. Visual studio doesn't even run on Linux.
      - adiM 8y ago
        Thanks for the explanation.
    - mehrdadn 8y ago
      I think you could say Visual Studio Code is to Visual Studio as GIMP is to Adobe Photoshop? Decent, and still useful/handy, but honestly still not even a comparable substitute.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I spend half my waking hours staring at Xcode, so believe me, I do know when command line tools are lacking ;)
    - mehrdadn 8y ago
      You should try Visual Studio, on Windows if you have to ;) it's not just CLI vs. GUI that I'm talking about, though that's of course a significant part of it too. Eclipse is a GUI too but I still find it painful. (w.r.t. Xcode I've only barely touched it, so hard to compare, but nothing particularly good or bad stood out to me in the little bit I used it.)
- altcognito 8y ago
  You just download nix tools for windows.
- jstarks 8y ago
  We are working hard to fix this. We ship Curl (and ssh and bsdtar) in Windows 10, and you can use WSL to run whatever Linux tools you want.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Make sure you start posting more sample code for these tools. Most windows devs are not aware of the command line or find it "unprofessional".
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Yup, well aware of your team's efforts. I think it's a great step forward, and from the little I've used it I think it's pretty cool.
  - jdhendrickson 8y ago
    I really appreciate your work, it's made my day to day so much better. You have a true once in a life time opportunity with how badly Apple is screwing the hardware pooch, if your hardware division could put out a laptop to rival the retina Macbook pro with up to date hardware and an excellent command line ecosystem you could very well shift an entire generation away from OsX. Thanks for all the hard work I'm using Linux for windows right now.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      > You have a true once in a life time opportunity with how badly Apple is screwing the hardware pooch, if your hardware division could put out a laptop to rival the retina Macbook pro with up to date hardware and an excellent command line ecosystem you could very well shift an entire generation away from OsX. Surface?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
spamlord 8y ago
As a Linux person that uses Windows on a daily basis, a few things have impressed me lately; Chocolatey[0], VS Code[1] especially w/ Azure integrations[2], and Windows Subsystem for Linux[3]. Things have come a long way.... [0] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [1] https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/ [2] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/azure/extensions https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/azure/extensions [3] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  If you know about the Linux tools things aren't that bad with Windows. My complaint is that a lot of windows devs aren't aware of the command line and its power.
fivre 8y ago
Having to occasionally work with Windows (or more accurately, support people using Windows for tasks that would much better be suited by Linux) makes me aghast at how bad its CLIs are at very basic interface things. People who work extensively in Windows environments tell me that Powershell is very, well, powerful, and I'm sure it is for certain select use cases of interacting with Windows' internals. But it's baffling, however, how completely incapable it is of handling basic things like sane, well-explained escaping behavior. I've attempted to find explanations for how people using Powershell should properly escape JSON (either for sending to HTTP APIs or for setting JSON environment variables when using Docker for Windows) and have concluded that it's basically impossible, as the escaping behavior is so different from *nix shells and appears to be documented nowhere. Supporting it is further complicated by lack of readily available test environments: even if I wasn't running Linux myself, spinning up a VM is free because there's no software license. This isn't the case with OS X, but I can at least assume that OS X bash works the same as Linux bash for 99% of things. Powershell is completely alien and I know of no free way to try it--maybe Azure provides some variant on their free tier, but I haven't looked into it much (my overall experience trying out Azure was that it was a dumpster fire to be avoided at all costs unless you need cloud AD, in which case it's probably amazing).
- bbatha 8y ago
  > Powershell should properly escape JSON You can escape things with `. So "{`"foo`": `"an \`"escaped \`" value`"}". Or because powershell has types and objects you can just use native objects and hashes, then pipe it to `ConvertTo-Json` when you need a string.[0] > Powershell is completely alien and I know of no free way to try it Powershell is opensource and cross-platform as of last year. [1] Though its still definitely windows first. 0: http://wahlnetwork.com/2016/02/18/using-powershell-arrays-and-hashtables-with-json-formatting/ http://wahlnetwork.com/2016/02/18/using-powershell-arrays-an... 1: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell

deleted 8y ago

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saagarjha 8y ago

That’s why I find it hard to convince people how annoying it is to use Windows for software development. It’s hard to miss what you aren’t aware of.

mehrdadn 8y ago
Funny, those of us who enjoy using Windows (esp. Visual Studio) for dev but are aware of how powerful command line tools are find it hard to convince you guys of the reverse in exactly the same way. We don't get the feeling you know what you're missing out on either. ;)
- adiM 8y ago
  Is there a difference between Visual Studio's Windows and Linux versions?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Visual studio and visual studio code are two very different products. Visual studio doesn't even run on Linux.
    - adiM 8y ago
      Thanks for the explanation.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    I think you could say Visual Studio Code is to Visual Studio as GIMP is to Adobe Photoshop? Decent, and still useful/handy, but honestly still not even a comparable substitute.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I spend half my waking hours staring at Xcode, so believe me, I do know when command line tools are lacking ;)
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    You should try Visual Studio, on Windows if you have to ;) it's not just CLI vs. GUI that I'm talking about, though that's of course a significant part of it too. Eclipse is a GUI too but I still find it painful. (w.r.t. Xcode I've only barely touched it, so hard to compare, but nothing particularly good or bad stood out to me in the little bit I used it.)
altcognito 8y ago
You just download nix tools for windows.
jstarks 8y ago
We are working hard to fix this. We ship Curl (and ssh and bsdtar) in Windows 10, and you can use WSL to run whatever Linux tools you want.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Make sure you start posting more sample code for these tools. Most windows devs are not aware of the command line or find it "unprofessional".
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Yup, well aware of your team's efforts. I think it's a great step forward, and from the little I've used it I think it's pretty cool.
- jdhendrickson 8y ago
  I really appreciate your work, it's made my day to day so much better. You have a true once in a life time opportunity with how badly Apple is screwing the hardware pooch, if your hardware division could put out a laptop to rival the retina Macbook pro with up to date hardware and an excellent command line ecosystem you could very well shift an entire generation away from OsX. Thanks for all the hard work I'm using Linux for windows right now.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > You have a true once in a life time opportunity with how badly Apple is screwing the hardware pooch, if your hardware division could put out a laptop to rival the retina Macbook pro with up to date hardware and an excellent command line ecosystem you could very well shift an entire generation away from OsX. Surface?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

spamlord 8y ago

As a Linux person that uses Windows on a daily basis, a few things have impressed me lately; Chocolatey[0], VS Code[1] especially w/ Azure integrations[2], and Windows Subsystem for Linux[3]. Things have come a long way.... [0] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [1] https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/ [2] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/azure/extensions https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/azure/extensions [3] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

maxxxxx 8y ago
If you know about the Linux tools things aren't that bad with Windows. My complaint is that a lot of windows devs aren't aware of the command line and its power.

fivre 8y ago

Having to occasionally work with Windows (or more accurately, support people using Windows for tasks that would much better be suited by Linux) makes me aghast at how bad its CLIs are at very basic interface things. People who work extensively in Windows environments tell me that Powershell is very, well, powerful, and I'm sure it is for certain select use cases of interacting with Windows' internals. But it's baffling, however, how completely incapable it is of handling basic things like sane, well-explained escaping behavior. I've attempted to find explanations for how people using Powershell should properly escape JSON (either for sending to HTTP APIs or for setting JSON environment variables when using Docker for Windows) and have concluded that it's basically impossible, as the escaping behavior is so different from *nix shells and appears to be documented nowhere. Supporting it is further complicated by lack of readily available test environments: even if I wasn't running Linux myself, spinning up a VM is free because there's no software license. This isn't the case with OS X, but I can at least assume that OS X bash works the same as Linux bash for 99% of things. Powershell is completely alien and I know of no free way to try it--maybe Azure provides some variant on their free tier, but I haven't looked into it much (my overall experience trying out Azure was that it was a dumpster fire to be avoided at all costs unless you need cloud AD, in which case it's probably amazing).

bbatha 8y ago
> Powershell should properly escape JSON You can escape things with `. So "{`"foo`": `"an \`"escaped \`" value`"}". Or because powershell has types and objects you can just use native objects and hashes, then pipe it to `ConvertTo-Json` when you need a string.[0] > Powershell is completely alien and I know of no free way to try it Powershell is opensource and cross-platform as of last year. [1] Though its still definitely windows first. 0: http://wahlnetwork.com/2016/02/18/using-powershell-arrays-and-hashtables-with-json-formatting/ http://wahlnetwork.com/2016/02/18/using-powershell-arrays-an... 1: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell