4 ms·

Windows isn't great for coding - I tried and ended up using Vagrant for almost everything (I still have no idea how to get Rails working on Windows, and only se

by 80386 8y ago

Windows isn't great for coding - I tried and ended up using Vagrant for almost everything (I still have no idea how to get Rails working on Windows, and only set up Python to run a desktop app I wrote for myself on Linux), but sandboxing programming into a VM that takes time to start up, having to configure port forwarding, etc. gets annoying quickly. And Linux can be a little cranky sometimes.

astrodust 8y ago
Windows is great for coding if you can live almost entirely within Visual Studio or things like Unreal or Unity. Windows has an utterly useless command-line environment. PowerShell is an attempt to remedy this, but honestly it's both a little too much, and far too little at the same time. Ubuntu on Windows is another attempt that falls short of its goals, it's a second-class environment strapped on top of the legacy mess that is Windows. The only thing I've found that makes Windows even habitable is that the Node.js experience is actually pretty good. With NPM, git, and a good text editor you can get a lot done, but even then you'll hit bare dirt now and then. Want to make a quick shell script to automate something? Hah! No. You need to commit to making a quick Node script instead.
- jgalentine007 8y ago
  Really haven't had any issues with Node, Git, VSCode and Git Bash on Windows... at least not any that you would fault Windows for. Cygwin/mingw works just fine. The ubuntu subsystem is about as 1st class as you can get, you don't see Apple providing anything like that (or a windows subsystem for that matter)
  - astrodust 8y ago
    Why would Apple provide Ubuntu when it already has a complete BSD environment and things like Homebrew to add even more tools should you need them? It's ridiculous that grandma's MacBook Air has better command-line tools than a typical developer's high-end Windows Professional workstation.
    - jgalentine007 8y ago
      BSD isn't the same as linux. Command line tools are just software, there is nothing preventing you from using bash, sh, zsh or ksh or powershell on Windows through either the linux subsystem, cygwin or ubuntu for windows. Your second statement is more ridiculous.
      - astrodust 8y ago
        Oh, you can "use" those, but the experience is absolutely atrocious because the Windows directory structure is complete chaos and it also has drive letters because in 1981 that's how CPM rolled.
        jgalentine007 8y ago
        BFD if you have to do 'cd /c/users/yourusername', of course 'cd ~' will take you there just like linux...
- addicted 8y ago
  Powershell is a really nice concept. It has a great help system and the concept of passing objects seems much nicer than the string passing that you have on most UNIX shells. The problem is that the commands are verbose (although part of that is because of the VERB-OBJECT style which is a great concept) as are the parameters and switches. It seems designed more for scripting and easy guessing of commands. However, in the Windows world you’re more likely to see C# used for scripting, and the verbosity takes away from the CLI aspect. Also, it’s slow. And Windows apps are not created with the command line in mind. For example, if I want to have even close to a chance of compiling VS solutions on the command line I have to open the Dev tools CLI which is not Powershell (and even then it’s likely to fail because VS does environmental setup that the CLI tools can’t).
- wrmsr 8y ago
  Seconded. I grew up writing C++ on VS6 and despite its innumerable problems (which I didn't remotely care about at the time) I also grew up not knowing source indexing and visually debugging C++ were even difficult, yet the world of posix seemed ancient and impenetrable. But these were the days of mingw, cygwin, and djgpp, all of which turned me off of non-win dev until moving to the bay and forcing myself to branch out. Having dabbled with Linux numerous times and falling on my face osx at the time offered a unique bridge between the worlds for me - bare enough to be able to force it to do what I told it to as a dev but not unwrittenly expecting me to be an already acclimated greybeard like the linux distros of the era. Those times are unfortunately gone, the difference between being a dev/poweruser on osx/apple increasingly feels like the difference between usermode/kernelmode on other platforms, and it's sad, but I guess it's still making them money hand over fist and nothing lasts forever. It’s the same story with tech and money, as time goes on we’re all increasingly affected by it but individual control of it continues to become more all-or-nothing.

by 80386 8y ago

astrodust 8y ago

Windows is great for coding if you can live almost entirely within Visual Studio or things like Unreal or Unity. Windows has an utterly useless command-line environment. PowerShell is an attempt to remedy this, but honestly it's both a little too much, and far too little at the same time. Ubuntu on Windows is another attempt that falls short of its goals, it's a second-class environment strapped on top of the legacy mess that is Windows. The only thing I've found that makes Windows even habitable is that the Node.js experience is actually pretty good. With NPM, git, and a good text editor you can get a lot done, but even then you'll hit bare dirt now and then. Want to make a quick shell script to automate something? Hah! No. You need to commit to making a quick Node script instead.

jgalentine007 8y ago
Really haven't had any issues with Node, Git, VSCode and Git Bash on Windows... at least not any that you would fault Windows for. Cygwin/mingw works just fine. The ubuntu subsystem is about as 1st class as you can get, you don't see Apple providing anything like that (or a windows subsystem for that matter)
- astrodust 8y ago
  Why would Apple provide Ubuntu when it already has a complete BSD environment and things like Homebrew to add even more tools should you need them? It's ridiculous that grandma's MacBook Air has better command-line tools than a typical developer's high-end Windows Professional workstation.
  - jgalentine007 8y ago
    BSD isn't the same as linux. Command line tools are just software, there is nothing preventing you from using bash, sh, zsh or ksh or powershell on Windows through either the linux subsystem, cygwin or ubuntu for windows. Your second statement is more ridiculous.
    - astrodust 8y ago
      Oh, you can "use" those, but the experience is absolutely atrocious because the Windows directory structure is complete chaos and it also has drive letters because in 1981 that's how CPM rolled.
      - jgalentine007 8y ago
        BFD if you have to do 'cd /c/users/yourusername', of course 'cd ~' will take you there just like linux...
addicted 8y ago
Powershell is a really nice concept. It has a great help system and the concept of passing objects seems much nicer than the string passing that you have on most UNIX shells. The problem is that the commands are verbose (although part of that is because of the VERB-OBJECT style which is a great concept) as are the parameters and switches. It seems designed more for scripting and easy guessing of commands. However, in the Windows world you’re more likely to see C# used for scripting, and the verbosity takes away from the CLI aspect. Also, it’s slow. And Windows apps are not created with the command line in mind. For example, if I want to have even close to a chance of compiling VS solutions on the command line I have to open the Dev tools CLI which is not Powershell (and even then it’s likely to fail because VS does environmental setup that the CLI tools can’t).
wrmsr 8y ago
Seconded. I grew up writing C++ on VS6 and despite its innumerable problems (which I didn't remotely care about at the time) I also grew up not knowing source indexing and visually debugging C++ were even difficult, yet the world of posix seemed ancient and impenetrable. But these were the days of mingw, cygwin, and djgpp, all of which turned me off of non-win dev until moving to the bay and forcing myself to branch out. Having dabbled with Linux numerous times and falling on my face osx at the time offered a unique bridge between the worlds for me - bare enough to be able to force it to do what I told it to as a dev but not unwrittenly expecting me to be an already acclimated greybeard like the linux distros of the era. Those times are unfortunately gone, the difference between being a dev/poweruser on osx/apple increasingly feels like the difference between usermode/kernelmode on other platforms, and it's sad, but I guess it's still making them money hand over fist and nothing lasts forever. It’s the same story with tech and money, as time goes on we’re all increasingly affected by it but individual control of it continues to become more all-or-nothing.