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I show them SSH and they need another app for that. Same for Ruby, most local dev servers, etc. and then every mundane command for me turns into twice the work

I show them SSH and they need another app for that. Same for Ruby, most local dev servers, etc. and then every mundane command for me turns into twice the work for them because they have to do what I'm doing plus whatever extra steps plus configuration on their machines. Oh, God, yes. I teach a class of aspiring hackers on the weekends, and they're all gamers and they come in with their windows laptops. Every once in a while I'll have a piece of a lesson where they need to install some dependency or compile some code they wrote in a text file, and it just brings the lesson to a screeching hault. Having them download a python cli so I could show them how to use python as calculator in one of our earlier lessons ended up being more trouble than it was worth. Windows is just not developer friendly if you're working in anything but .Net - and I think C#-.Net-Visual Studio programming for windows desktop applications is the best programming experience there is. I just don't have many clients asking for that.

mattmanser 15y ago
Ruby and Python take like 10 secs to install on Windows these days. Not sure what you're doing wrong. The only annoying thing is occasionally you come across a python library that needs compiling and that turns into a veritable nightmare. Simple trick I do on my windows machine is to create a bin folder and add it to the PATH settings so you can just bung things like curl and sqllite in there without faffing around. I'm not saying it's great and windows is definitely cli hostile, but you're exaggerating the problems. Just teach your hackers win key+r or on win 7 they can just hit the win key, type cmd, press enter. Then type irb or python, enter. Done.
- padobson 15y ago
  It may take you or me only 10 seconds to install python on Windows, but my students need my help for every step. Even if I tell them to get up and I do it myself, it's still 10s X N students to get everyone up to speed. Compare that with zero seconds for Mac or Linux, both which come with python installed.

mattmanser 15y ago

Ruby and Python take like 10 secs to install on Windows these days. Not sure what you're doing wrong. The only annoying thing is occasionally you come across a python library that needs compiling and that turns into a veritable nightmare. Simple trick I do on my windows machine is to create a bin folder and add it to the PATH settings so you can just bung things like curl and sqllite in there without faffing around. I'm not saying it's great and windows is definitely cli hostile, but you're exaggerating the problems. Just teach your hackers win key+r or on win 7 they can just hit the win key, type cmd, press enter. Then type irb or python, enter. Done.

padobson 15y ago
It may take you or me only 10 seconds to install python on Windows, but my students need my help for every step. Even if I tell them to get up and I do it myself, it's still 10s X N students to get everyone up to speed. Compare that with zero seconds for Mac or Linux, both which come with python installed.