7 ms·

I was on the Windows platform for 15 years and moved over to Linux about 6 years ago. One thing I miss from Windows Server is that it was very stable, updates n

by z3t4 6y ago

I was on the Windows platform for 15 years and moved over to Linux about 6 years ago. One thing I miss from Windows Server is that it was very stable, updates never broke anything. If you got any updates that is. I think most people use Windows server because they are locked into Microsoft technology. I switched to Linux, and most importantly open source technology - in order to get out of the Windows ecosystem. I switched from an ASP stack to Node.JS, but it feels Microsoft is still stalking me, buying NPM, Github, releasing their own JavaScript flavor, releasing their own "open source" software bundled with proprietary add-ons, meanwhile suing Linux users for patent breach.

Krustopolis 6y ago
Could you please provide a link to some cases where Microsoft is suing Linux users for violating their patents? I thought they stopped that practice years ago.
- yc12340 6y ago
  You mean, except for every major Android manufacturer paying exFAT tax? Microsoft certainly don't sue as much as they used, but that's because they are no longer developing as much groundbreaking tech. And when they do develop something, everyone avoids touching it with ten-foot pole (see also: "success" of UEFI on ARM devices).
  - Krustopolis 6y ago
    Microsoft made an official statement almost a year ago that it was OK to use exFAT, and they published the specs as well. https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-linux-kernel/ https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat... I won't argue how groundbreaking their technology is of late, but in all fairness they have been much more open with their code.
cosmotic 6y ago
Similarly, I ran away from the Microsoft world because everyone was just 'drinking the koolaid'. I got out, into Python and django, and the problem was similar: everyone was drinking just a different koolaid. ASP.NET MVC C# with EF has got to be one of the most solid web frameworks I've ever used. Open-source fanatics refuse to listen about why it's great... even though it's open source now.
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  I think I've kinda protected myself from that by working across multiple operating systems and different stacks. I think a lot of devs would do well to try different frameworks, different ways of programming (myself included). I think EF might get a bad rap because it's pretty closely tied to MS SQL Server - and if you don't know exactly what you're doing it will write some pretty hideous queries for you.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    Should give Dapper a try, much cleaner imho... Though one of the projects I'm on is no abstraction at all.. most of the calls are via sprocs and using JSON for data input/output from the db directly. edit: by no abstraction, we have like 4 db methods that have a different generic type interface, but that's it across hundreds of different SP calls at the API later.
adwww 6y ago
I went for a while of bumping into lots of job opportuntities using the Microsoft stack, and thought perhaps it would be good for my career to learn a bit. But the barrier to entry seemed so high at the time - you needed MSDN subscriptions, paid IDEs, and paid servers. All out of my reach as a self taught junior developer. I don't know how or where everyone learnt it all, except as graduate developers at BigCorp?
- z3t4 6y ago
  Most Microsoft technology is completely free for non professionals. PC came with a Windows CD or the OS was per-installed already. You could install IIS (ASP server, l.limited to 5 users) from the Windows CD. I used the classic notepad.exe to code. It was kinda standard to buy the Office package, which came with a file based database. There where plenty of free tutorials on the web, and IIS also had some examples. And there where services that would host your web app for free. If you wanted to do "real" programming you had to buy books and a compiler which was super expensive. Moving to Linux was a new world opening, that I had only seen glimpses of before. Using apt-get to install an app was mind blowing. Getting used to the command line took a while, but now I do everything from the terminal, except some GUI apps and the browser. Still have to look up most commands and read man pages though.
  - adwww 6y ago
    I think my experience might have been crippled a bit by having had a mac as my main PC since university, meaning less easy access to a non-locked down Windows installation. Much the same way as Windows users probably are not big objective C developers... It just felt like for a server language like .NET that your personal laptop shouldn't really matter much.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      In that space, you'd mostly have needed to use Mono and MonoDevelop, depending on the time-frame.. after MS bought Xamarin, Visual Studio for Mac is actually a descendant of MonoDevelop
  - 6y ago
bfrog 6y ago
If you use rhel the guarantees are also very strong though it requires some extra steps to package and distribute your own software. Ubuntu on the other hand I've found breaks stuff often enough to be a nuisance.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Try OpenSUSE, it has a more recent kernel then RH, it's still rock solid, and it has a great community. Aside from breaking stuff all the time, Ubuntu seems to have wide swings in the quality of documentation.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  Snapcraft fixed that
scarface74 6y ago
I've been an exclusive Microsoft developer since 1996. I still develop on a Windows computer to this day, mostly Node, Python, and C# .Net Core. and had no problems deploying everything on Windows servers. Then I discovered the cloud and moved into positions where the cost of infrastructure could easily be assigned to my implementations and I had to answer for the cost. Once you add Windows to any implementation a few things happen. You pay more for licensing, you pay a lot more for resources (you can do a lot with 128MB/0.25 vCPU VM with Linux), and it is a much slower for VMs to scale in and out for elastic workloads like bringing instances up and down based on queue length.
mekster 6y ago
I tried Windows server a while back for a need but it felt like a bad joke compared to Linux when the RDP one day stopped responding for no reason (had a few occasions of it) and I couldn't do anything but reboot killing the GUI app that was running in it. On Linux l, I never had a problem with ssh unless I made a mistake in network configuration and doesn't suddenly block my access like that. Windows also takes larger amount of resources compared to Linux and running a 1GB memory instance meant it could run out of memory anytime freezing the whole experience without doing much of anything on it. Not sure why 1GB instance even exists as it's quite useless. I feel like I'm doing a job inside ssh session but feels I'm being dragged down with mouse click achieving very little per second. On Linux, automation can be done anyway you like but on Windows, that's just not the way it's meant to be with random GUI apps. No idea how to back up configs of those or invoke actions programmatically. And you have to pay for the license. Windows is a consumer OS by design.

by z3t4 6y ago

Krustopolis 6y ago

Could you please provide a link to some cases where Microsoft is suing Linux users for violating their patents? I thought they stopped that practice years ago.

yc12340 6y ago
You mean, except for every major Android manufacturer paying exFAT tax? Microsoft certainly don't sue as much as they used, but that's because they are no longer developing as much groundbreaking tech. And when they do develop something, everyone avoids touching it with ten-foot pole (see also: "success" of UEFI on ARM devices).
- Krustopolis 6y ago
  Microsoft made an official statement almost a year ago that it was OK to use exFAT, and they published the specs as well. https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-linux-kernel/ https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat... I won't argue how groundbreaking their technology is of late, but in all fairness they have been much more open with their code.

cosmotic 6y ago

Similarly, I ran away from the Microsoft world because everyone was just 'drinking the koolaid'. I got out, into Python and django, and the problem was similar: everyone was drinking just a different koolaid. ASP.NET MVC C# with EF has got to be one of the most solid web frameworks I've ever used. Open-source fanatics refuse to listen about why it's great... even though it's open source now.

voltagex_ 6y ago
I think I've kinda protected myself from that by working across multiple operating systems and different stacks. I think a lot of devs would do well to try different frameworks, different ways of programming (myself included). I think EF might get a bad rap because it's pretty closely tied to MS SQL Server - and if you don't know exactly what you're doing it will write some pretty hideous queries for you.
- tracker1 6y ago
  Should give Dapper a try, much cleaner imho... Though one of the projects I'm on is no abstraction at all.. most of the calls are via sprocs and using JSON for data input/output from the db directly. edit: by no abstraction, we have like 4 db methods that have a different generic type interface, but that's it across hundreds of different SP calls at the API later.

adwww 6y ago

I went for a while of bumping into lots of job opportuntities using the Microsoft stack, and thought perhaps it would be good for my career to learn a bit. But the barrier to entry seemed so high at the time - you needed MSDN subscriptions, paid IDEs, and paid servers. All out of my reach as a self taught junior developer. I don't know how or where everyone learnt it all, except as graduate developers at BigCorp?

z3t4 6y ago
Most Microsoft technology is completely free for non professionals. PC came with a Windows CD or the OS was per-installed already. You could install IIS (ASP server, l.limited to 5 users) from the Windows CD. I used the classic notepad.exe to code. It was kinda standard to buy the Office package, which came with a file based database. There where plenty of free tutorials on the web, and IIS also had some examples. And there where services that would host your web app for free. If you wanted to do "real" programming you had to buy books and a compiler which was super expensive. Moving to Linux was a new world opening, that I had only seen glimpses of before. Using apt-get to install an app was mind blowing. Getting used to the command line took a while, but now I do everything from the terminal, except some GUI apps and the browser. Still have to look up most commands and read man pages though.
- adwww 6y ago
  I think my experience might have been crippled a bit by having had a mac as my main PC since university, meaning less easy access to a non-locked down Windows installation. Much the same way as Windows users probably are not big objective C developers... It just felt like for a server language like .NET that your personal laptop shouldn't really matter much.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    In that space, you'd mostly have needed to use Mono and MonoDevelop, depending on the time-frame.. after MS bought Xamarin, Visual Studio for Mac is actually a descendant of MonoDevelop
- 6y ago

bfrog 6y ago

If you use rhel the guarantees are also very strong though it requires some extra steps to package and distribute your own software. Ubuntu on the other hand I've found breaks stuff often enough to be a nuisance.

pnutjam 6y ago
Try OpenSUSE, it has a more recent kernel then RH, it's still rock solid, and it has a great community. Aside from breaking stuff all the time, Ubuntu seems to have wide swings in the quality of documentation.
JAlexoid 6y ago
Snapcraft fixed that

scarface74 6y ago

I've been an exclusive Microsoft developer since 1996. I still develop on a Windows computer to this day, mostly Node, Python, and C# .Net Core. and had no problems deploying everything on Windows servers. Then I discovered the cloud and moved into positions where the cost of infrastructure could easily be assigned to my implementations and I had to answer for the cost. Once you add Windows to any implementation a few things happen. You pay more for licensing, you pay a lot more for resources (you can do a lot with 128MB/0.25 vCPU VM with Linux), and it is a much slower for VMs to scale in and out for elastic workloads like bringing instances up and down based on queue length.

mekster 6y ago

I tried Windows server a while back for a need but it felt like a bad joke compared to Linux when the RDP one day stopped responding for no reason (had a few occasions of it) and I couldn't do anything but reboot killing the GUI app that was running in it. On Linux l, I never had a problem with ssh unless I made a mistake in network configuration and doesn't suddenly block my access like that. Windows also takes larger amount of resources compared to Linux and running a 1GB memory instance meant it could run out of memory anytime freezing the whole experience without doing much of anything on it. Not sure why 1GB instance even exists as it's quite useless. I feel like I'm doing a job inside ssh session but feels I'm being dragged down with mouse click achieving very little per second. On Linux, automation can be done anyway you like but on Windows, that's just not the way it's meant to be with random GUI apps. No idea how to back up configs of those or invoke actions programmatically. And you have to pay for the license. Windows is a consumer OS by design.