5 ms·

In every company I worked for (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland) it was all Windows laptops, that for the Linux component either used a VM, WSL or straight

by hawski 2y ago

In every company I worked for (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland) it was all Windows laptops, that for the Linux component either used a VM, WSL or straight up servers.

usr1106 2y ago
I just don't want to work under such incapable management / IT department, that forces developers to use Windows. I have worked with Linux for 17 years and the last time I was forced to have a Windows VM was 14 years ago. Yes, it limits available jobs and probably doesn't pay any top salaries. But better than selling myself to people I don't respect.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  [flagged]
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  I admire this spirit, probably because I am still unable to put it in practice -- and those are typically moments where I dream of my own business. IT at my current employer is capable enough ( though there are rumblings of moving everything, but hardware offshore again.. I am starting to think it all moves in waves ), but our executives, well, lets just say over the past few weeks I was questioning what I am doing here.
- hnbad 2y ago
  I'm a dev who switched from desktop Linux to Windows with WSL without regrets. That devs at a company use Windows doesn't mean they're forced to. Often it just means the designers also work on Windows.
  - docmars 2y ago
    Why would engineers need to use the same OS platform as the designers? Most designers use Figma these days, which has clients for Windows and macOS, and can be used fully in a web browser as well.
    - hnbad 2y ago
      Figma's valuation is a fragment of that of Adobe. Saying most designers use Figma is as distorted as saying most designers use macOS, even if both things may be true in a specific niche (e.g. tech companies in the US). In my experience of the rise of macOS among developers, the biggest driving force was mobile app development and mobile web development because Apple refused to provide first party developer tools or emulators usable on other operating systems and made it intentionally difficult to run macOS on non-Apple hardware or in a VM. Previously macOS was largely associated with designers, not developers. This move also started blurring the lines more with designers making the move to development and (to a smaller degree) vice versa.
      - tekknik 2y ago
        No, developers flocked to macOS because it runs unix and has a complete and nice looking UI with sensible design patterns designed by an actual designer instead of an engineer. Development across the board is better on a mac for some / many people.
      - docmars 2y ago
        I think that's a fair take, it really does depend on which platform(s) you're developing for too. And you're probably correct that Adobe has a larger share overall, but I would highly doubt that Illustrator or XD are being used more than Figma for UI design these days. Even less so, Photoshop, since it's a raster tool. Adobe was about ready to phase out XD when they were getting ready to purchase Figma. Figma is free starting off, and their basic plans are extremely affordable compared to anything Adobe offers.
- hylaride 2y ago
  Although I probably have my price, I too otherwise refuse to work for companies that'd force me to use windows. I've been lucky to be able to use macs since 2008 and some of those companies had linux users. Most top tech companies will happily give you a choice between a mac or windows. For me it has generally mean I don't work for banks, the government, or very large organizations that aren't recent tech companies. That being said, at a certain scale or type of company centralized management, software support, and security risks mean "allowing" random people to run their own OS becomes difficult and risky. Lots of large older companies probably have proprietary software, too (thankfully more of this is becoming web based). Yes, in theory linux is more secure and anybody who would want to use it is probably capable of taking care of themselves, but it is probably (at large companies) corporate lawyers and CISOs ruining the fun. And linux can have its own risks and dedicating a team to support (from a security perspective) them isn't economical for the what would be very small user base. Ye old big bank can't and arguably shouldn't allow it without an otherwise good reason.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    The good reason is to get your job done, which is what the computer is for. The tools many developers use today (e.g. containers) are Linux only and their target environment (i.e. the servers where their code will run) is Linux. The typical workaround is to use VMs. This results in terrible filesystem performance on both Mac and Windows, and on Windows I've also had to deal with things like time, DNS, and routing breaking in the VM, so now I need to know how to be a Linux and Windows sysadmin (i.e. not what you want to be paying me for) to fix it instead of just using e.g. Fedora which I've never had any issue with; it just works. Another user commented about how it's unreasonable to ask them to run CAD software in a VM, but this is exactly what (some? many?) companies ask programmers to do. It's especially goofy if it's a software company where that development is their core business.

by hawski 2y ago

In every company I worked for (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland) it was all Windows laptops, that for the Linux component either used a VM, WSL or straight up servers.

usr1106 2y ago

I just don't want to work under such incapable management / IT department, that forces developers to use Windows. I have worked with Linux for 17 years and the last time I was forced to have a Windows VM was 14 years ago. Yes, it limits available jobs and probably doesn't pay any top salaries. But better than selling myself to people I don't respect.

BSDobelix 2y ago
[flagged]
A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
I admire this spirit, probably because I am still unable to put it in practice -- and those are typically moments where I dream of my own business. IT at my current employer is capable enough ( though there are rumblings of moving everything, but hardware offshore again.. I am starting to think it all moves in waves ), but our executives, well, lets just say over the past few weeks I was questioning what I am doing here.
hnbad 2y ago
I'm a dev who switched from desktop Linux to Windows with WSL without regrets. That devs at a company use Windows doesn't mean they're forced to. Often it just means the designers also work on Windows.
- docmars 2y ago
  Why would engineers need to use the same OS platform as the designers? Most designers use Figma these days, which has clients for Windows and macOS, and can be used fully in a web browser as well.
  - hnbad 2y ago
    Figma's valuation is a fragment of that of Adobe. Saying most designers use Figma is as distorted as saying most designers use macOS, even if both things may be true in a specific niche (e.g. tech companies in the US). In my experience of the rise of macOS among developers, the biggest driving force was mobile app development and mobile web development because Apple refused to provide first party developer tools or emulators usable on other operating systems and made it intentionally difficult to run macOS on non-Apple hardware or in a VM. Previously macOS was largely associated with designers, not developers. This move also started blurring the lines more with designers making the move to development and (to a smaller degree) vice versa.
    - tekknik 2y ago
      No, developers flocked to macOS because it runs unix and has a complete and nice looking UI with sensible design patterns designed by an actual designer instead of an engineer. Development across the board is better on a mac for some / many people.
    - docmars 2y ago
      I think that's a fair take, it really does depend on which platform(s) you're developing for too. And you're probably correct that Adobe has a larger share overall, but I would highly doubt that Illustrator or XD are being used more than Figma for UI design these days. Even less so, Photoshop, since it's a raster tool. Adobe was about ready to phase out XD when they were getting ready to purchase Figma. Figma is free starting off, and their basic plans are extremely affordable compared to anything Adobe offers.
hylaride 2y ago
Although I probably have my price, I too otherwise refuse to work for companies that'd force me to use windows. I've been lucky to be able to use macs since 2008 and some of those companies had linux users. Most top tech companies will happily give you a choice between a mac or windows. For me it has generally mean I don't work for banks, the government, or very large organizations that aren't recent tech companies. That being said, at a certain scale or type of company centralized management, software support, and security risks mean "allowing" random people to run their own OS becomes difficult and risky. Lots of large older companies probably have proprietary software, too (thankfully more of this is becoming web based). Yes, in theory linux is more secure and anybody who would want to use it is probably capable of taking care of themselves, but it is probably (at large companies) corporate lawyers and CISOs ruining the fun. And linux can have its own risks and dedicating a team to support (from a security perspective) them isn't economical for the what would be very small user base. Ye old big bank can't and arguably shouldn't allow it without an otherwise good reason.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  The good reason is to get your job done, which is what the computer is for. The tools many developers use today (e.g. containers) are Linux only and their target environment (i.e. the servers where their code will run) is Linux. The typical workaround is to use VMs. This results in terrible filesystem performance on both Mac and Windows, and on Windows I've also had to deal with things like time, DNS, and routing breaking in the VM, so now I need to know how to be a Linux and Windows sysadmin (i.e. not what you want to be paying me for) to fix it instead of just using e.g. Fedora which I've never had any issue with; it just works. Another user commented about how it's unreasonable to ask them to run CAD software in a VM, but this is exactly what (some? many?) companies ask programmers to do. It's especially goofy if it's a software company where that development is their core business.