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surprised to see Windows users so high in the survey. any selection bias going on here?

by swyx 5y ago

aero-glide2 5y ago
I'm surprised to see Linux usage so high.
simion314 5y ago
Why so surprised? I never had a colleague ever using Linux like myself,everyone uses Windows and one time a person also owned a OSX machine. It is obvious that there is a big bias, people that have the time and still enjoy coding puzzles and probably some other groups of people that I don't know about(I never participated).
matsemann 5y ago
Is the bias perhaps on your side? There is a big world outside the US west coast.
IshKebab 5y ago
The selection bias is in the task itself. Windows is far more popular among non-developers.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  Game development also happens almost exclusively on Windows. Linux and macOS seems to be more popular with the backend- and web-dev crowd though.
flohofwoe 5y ago
I'm rather surprised that Linux and macOS are so high. Different bubbles I guess.
nickjj 5y ago
Windows with WSL 2 is really good for general development. You can essentially use Windows as a shell of an OS to run certain tools that don't work great on native Linux while spending a majority of your time in a terminal treating the experience as native Linux. Docker is also extremely fast with no volume performance issues. We all know the "other" issues with Windows but besides privacy (which feels disgusting to even say btw), it's really solid, fast and feels ok to use. I do a ton of dev / ops related work on it and don't have too many complaints from a technical standpoint -- lack of a first class tiled window manager is the only big one that comes to mind.
- tzs 5y ago
  Windows was the most used desktop OS for development before WSL. Here's the 2015 Stack Overflow survey, which also includes the 2014 and 2013 results for comparison [1]. Here's the 2021 survey's OS results [2]. It shows higher WSL usage than the AoC survey, but still only 3%. [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#tech https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#tech [2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-popular-technologies-operating-system https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-...

surprised to see Windows users so high in the survey. any selection bias going on here?

by swyx 5y ago

surprised to see Windows users so high in the survey. any selection bias going on here?

aero-glide2 5y ago

I'm surprised to see Linux usage so high.

simion314 5y ago

Why so surprised? I never had a colleague ever using Linux like myself,everyone uses Windows and one time a person also owned a OSX machine. It is obvious that there is a big bias, people that have the time and still enjoy coding puzzles and probably some other groups of people that I don't know about(I never participated).

matsemann 5y ago

Is the bias perhaps on your side? There is a big world outside the US west coast.

IshKebab 5y ago

The selection bias is in the task itself. Windows is far more popular among non-developers.

flohofwoe 5y ago
Game development also happens almost exclusively on Windows. Linux and macOS seems to be more popular with the backend- and web-dev crowd though.

flohofwoe 5y ago

I'm rather surprised that Linux and macOS are so high. Different bubbles I guess.

nickjj 5y ago

Windows with WSL 2 is really good for general development. You can essentially use Windows as a shell of an OS to run certain tools that don't work great on native Linux while spending a majority of your time in a terminal treating the experience as native Linux. Docker is also extremely fast with no volume performance issues. We all know the "other" issues with Windows but besides privacy (which feels disgusting to even say btw), it's really solid, fast and feels ok to use. I do a ton of dev / ops related work on it and don't have too many complaints from a technical standpoint -- lack of a first class tiled window manager is the only big one that comes to mind.

tzs 5y ago
Windows was the most used desktop OS for development before WSL. Here's the 2015 Stack Overflow survey, which also includes the 2014 and 2013 results for comparison [1]. Here's the 2021 survey's OS results [2]. It shows higher WSL usage than the AoC survey, but still only 3%. [1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#tech https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015#tech [2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-popular-technologies-operating-system https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-...