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I feel pity for anyone that are forced to develop on Windows.

curiousgal 5y ago
Exactly. I started using it on my personal machine so that I can get used to it and make my work experience less shitty.
ycuser2 5y ago
I develop on Windows and Linux, and I'm ok with Windows. What are the main disadvantages to develop on Windows?
- reedf1 5y ago
  From someone who has done heavy development on both - I would say it's quite difficult to get used to the filesystem, non-POSIX (which is why mac users and linux users tend to find affinity), windows API being a bit arcane (Things like user-groups, event viewer, and process explorer being mostly dated UI apps with unique and strange windows API calls), services vs daemons, session-zero. I would say it's great at a user level, but under the covers you have to be a true windows grognard to know what is going on.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    This is why I don't use windows. Compared to Linux, everything feels strange and obfuscated
mojzu 5y ago
I've switched to Windows from Ubuntu on my desktop for development. I do miss some things but WSL2 is surprisingly good, the bluetooth stack doesn't randomly fail (as often) and having access to Windows and Linux tools at the same time without having to dual boot is very useful
andoli 5y ago
Could you please elaborate why? I found macos/ios to be the most annoying platform to develop on by far, expecially if you are trying to make some kind of cross-platform software. For webdev grunt work, in 2022, I think there are no dramatic differences between the 3 OS...
stinos 5y ago
It's not because you don't understand something that other people cannot live with it. Dare I say, I pity such lack of imagination? FWIW I use both limux and windows, if that even matters.
wongarsu 5y ago
I used to develop on Linux, but eventually wanted something that "just works" so I switched back to Windows. Much less time spent tinkering and more time spent getting things done, and WSL saves me from having to learn Powershell (even if I only hear good things about it). Never even considered MacOS as an option. Not as good for tinkering as Linux, and with 17% market share (both in my country and global average) it can't deliver the "everyone supports this, everything just works" that I got with Windows (it also doesn't help that Apple lately seems to happily break anything not sold by them)
- GlennS 5y ago
  17% market share for MacOS? That seems high?
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    It's actually more like 15% globally, if you use statcounter.com numbers [1]. I was being generous by using the early 2021 numbers. Statista probably uses the same source [2]. Netmarketshare puts it at about 10% [3] 1: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide 2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-sha... 3: https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?options=%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22%24and%22%3A%5B%7B%22deviceType%22%3A%7B%22%24in%22%3A%5B%22Desktop%2Flaptop%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%2C%22dateLabel%22%3A%22Trend%22%2C%22attributes%22%3A%22share%22%2C%22group%22%3A%22platform%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22share%22%3A-1%7D%2C%22id%22%3A%22platformsDesktop%22%2C%22dateInterval%22%3A%22Monthly%22%2C%22dateStart%22%3A%222019-11%22%2C%22dateEnd%22%3A%222020-10%22%2C%22segments%22%3A%22-1000%22%7D https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.asp...
- ulzeraj 5y ago
  > I used to develop on Linux, but eventually wanted something that "just works" so I switched back to Windows. Much less time spent tinkering and more time spent getting things done, and WSL saves me from having to learn Powershell (even if I only hear good things about it). I must be the strange one here since WSL is a hardcore nope from me. Mainly because I've gave that setup a chance last year and then after two hours of work I've noticed Windows git or WSL changed all my carriage returns to CLRF and basically broke all scripts and pipelines.
tiborsaas 5y ago
Some might pity you for not being able to add those beefy GPU-s into your setup. I know, external GPU-s exists, which is cool if you miss the Commodore 64 era of plugging a bunch of devices together.
lonecom 5y ago
I call it "Windads" these days. Because so many Ads!
dagw 5y ago
Why? My career as been split pretty close to 50/50 between developing on *nix and Windows. And while both have strengths and weaknesses I wouldn't say one is better than the other. If you put a gun to my head and said I could only use one desktop OS for the rest of my life I would probably choose Windows.
kryptiskt 5y ago
I use Windows to develop at home, and Ubuntu at work. I much prefer Windows. The only advantage Linux has is the terminal environment. The GUI is crappy. The memory handling is atrocious, if it starts swapping it'll freeze for twenty minutes before the OOM killer finally kicks in. Multiple monitor use is a crap shoot, I'll always get one black screen after resuming from suspend. Windows is miles more stable. And this on a Dell XPS 15 which is supposed to have great Linux support.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  There are two major and many smaller desktop environments for Linux. KDE is more like Windows, you could try that. (sudo apt install tasksel; sudo tasksel install kubuntu-full to get a KUbuntu equivalent, or just sudo apt install kde-full for the main things. Though you may well have a colleague already using KDE.) Unless you need it for the type of work you do, you could disable swap, or reduce it to a small amount. (I don't have a laptop, so I can't comment on suspend.)
PufPufPuf 5y ago
I develop on Windows voluntarily. Funnily I was not able to set-up Docker with CUDA on any of the Linux distributions I have tried, but on Windows with WSL it worked pretty much out of the box.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
In the past I always found Visual Studio to be a solid dev environment. This was for C++, where the debugger was unmatched by anything else. Things may have changed since then (8+ years ago)?
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  I use CLion on Ubuntu and it's an absolute joy to use. Debugger is absolutely on par with VS in my opinion - and if you are missing something, gdb is always avaliable within a terminal.

Exactly. I started using it on my personal machine so that I can get used to it and make my work experience less shitty.

ycuser2 5y ago

I develop on Windows and Linux, and I'm ok with Windows. What are the main disadvantages to develop on Windows?

reedf1 5y ago
From someone who has done heavy development on both - I would say it's quite difficult to get used to the filesystem, non-POSIX (which is why mac users and linux users tend to find affinity), windows API being a bit arcane (Things like user-groups, event viewer, and process explorer being mostly dated UI apps with unique and strange windows API calls), services vs daemons, session-zero. I would say it's great at a user level, but under the covers you have to be a true windows grognard to know what is going on.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  This is why I don't use windows. Compared to Linux, everything feels strange and obfuscated

mojzu 5y ago

I've switched to Windows from Ubuntu on my desktop for development. I do miss some things but WSL2 is surprisingly good, the bluetooth stack doesn't randomly fail (as often) and having access to Windows and Linux tools at the same time without having to dual boot is very useful

andoli 5y ago

Could you please elaborate why? I found macos/ios to be the most annoying platform to develop on by far, expecially if you are trying to make some kind of cross-platform software. For webdev grunt work, in 2022, I think there are no dramatic differences between the 3 OS...

stinos 5y ago

It's not because you don't understand something that other people cannot live with it. Dare I say, I pity such lack of imagination? FWIW I use both limux and windows, if that even matters.

wongarsu 5y ago

I used to develop on Linux, but eventually wanted something that "just works" so I switched back to Windows. Much less time spent tinkering and more time spent getting things done, and WSL saves me from having to learn Powershell (even if I only hear good things about it). Never even considered MacOS as an option. Not as good for tinkering as Linux, and with 17% market share (both in my country and global average) it can't deliver the "everyone supports this, everything just works" that I got with Windows (it also doesn't help that Apple lately seems to happily break anything not sold by them)

GlennS 5y ago
17% market share for MacOS? That seems high?
- wongarsu 5y ago
  It's actually more like 15% globally, if you use statcounter.com numbers [1]. I was being generous by using the early 2021 numbers. Statista probably uses the same source [2]. Netmarketshare puts it at about 10% [3] 1: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide 2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-sha... 3: https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?options=%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22%24and%22%3A%5B%7B%22deviceType%22%3A%7B%22%24in%22%3A%5B%22Desktop%2Flaptop%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%2C%22dateLabel%22%3A%22Trend%22%2C%22attributes%22%3A%22share%22%2C%22group%22%3A%22platform%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22share%22%3A-1%7D%2C%22id%22%3A%22platformsDesktop%22%2C%22dateInterval%22%3A%22Monthly%22%2C%22dateStart%22%3A%222019-11%22%2C%22dateEnd%22%3A%222020-10%22%2C%22segments%22%3A%22-1000%22%7D https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.asp...
ulzeraj 5y ago
> I used to develop on Linux, but eventually wanted something that "just works" so I switched back to Windows. Much less time spent tinkering and more time spent getting things done, and WSL saves me from having to learn Powershell (even if I only hear good things about it). I must be the strange one here since WSL is a hardcore nope from me. Mainly because I've gave that setup a chance last year and then after two hours of work I've noticed Windows git or WSL changed all my carriage returns to CLRF and basically broke all scripts and pipelines.

tiborsaas 5y ago

Some might pity you for not being able to add those beefy GPU-s into your setup. I know, external GPU-s exists, which is cool if you miss the Commodore 64 era of plugging a bunch of devices together.

lonecom 5y ago

I call it "Windads" these days. Because so many Ads!

dagw 5y ago

Why? My career as been split pretty close to 50/50 between developing on *nix and Windows. And while both have strengths and weaknesses I wouldn't say one is better than the other. If you put a gun to my head and said I could only use one desktop OS for the rest of my life I would probably choose Windows.

kryptiskt 5y ago

I use Windows to develop at home, and Ubuntu at work. I much prefer Windows. The only advantage Linux has is the terminal environment. The GUI is crappy. The memory handling is atrocious, if it starts swapping it'll freeze for twenty minutes before the OOM killer finally kicks in. Multiple monitor use is a crap shoot, I'll always get one black screen after resuming from suspend. Windows is miles more stable. And this on a Dell XPS 15 which is supposed to have great Linux support.

Symbiote 5y ago
There are two major and many smaller desktop environments for Linux. KDE is more like Windows, you could try that. (sudo apt install tasksel; sudo tasksel install kubuntu-full to get a KUbuntu equivalent, or just sudo apt install kde-full for the main things. Though you may well have a colleague already using KDE.) Unless you need it for the type of work you do, you could disable swap, or reduce it to a small amount. (I don't have a laptop, so I can't comment on suspend.)

PufPufPuf 5y ago

I develop on Windows voluntarily. Funnily I was not able to set-up Docker with CUDA on any of the Linux distributions I have tried, but on Windows with WSL it worked pretty much out of the box.

CodeGlitch 5y ago

In the past I always found Visual Studio to be a solid dev environment. This was for C++, where the debugger was unmatched by anything else. Things may have changed since then (8+ years ago)?

lpcvoid 5y ago
I use CLion on Ubuntu and it's an absolute joy to use. Debugger is absolutely on par with VS in my opinion - and if you are missing something, gdb is always avaliable within a terminal.