5 ms·

do they really, or is windows just what they use to launch excel? I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.

thorncorona 2y ago
Most of the software world is on Windows.
- philwelch 2y ago
  Maybe if you count game development. And, if you’re generous, development environments that run inside a Linux VM hosted by Windows (WSL counts).
- emptiestplace 2y ago
  It's really bad, though. Like ... objectively abysmal. No other popular platform is more dev-hostile. I think most folks are there because they lack choice or experience with alternatives.
  - eitland 2y ago
    Mac user here, and I think Mac really isn't far away from being worst. Between only now finally getting tiling[1], menus filled with items I haven't seen anyone use, and since WSL came on Windows it is now the absolutely most clumsy mainstream thing to install a standard tool. Oh, and shortcuts. I still use it because it is silent, has a good display, just works when I open it, has a battery that actually last all day and because IT departments don't know how to lock it down. [1]: although I cannot use it because then I would have to re-enable "spaces pr screen" which
    - emptiestplace 2y ago
      Hm. I spend most of my time in iTerm. MacOS is Unixy and cozy. WSL definitely is clumsy - actually, everything to do with containers in Windows is a pain in the ass to deal with. Run Windows in kvm, not the other way around. Have you tried Rectangle? It's not automatic, but I find it a reasonable compromise. Last I tried, Yabai et. al. were all pretty flaky compared to proper x11 twms.
      - sleepybrett 2y ago
        For my window management on mac os I wrote some javascript and use https://github.com/kasper/phoenix https://github.com/kasper/phoenix I will concede that macos default out of the box also has some UI/UX issues for people who are or want to be 'hands on keyboard 100% of the time' but there are a few tools out there that I've found for myself that solve many of the problems. Phoenix being one, but also recently homerow https://www.homerow.app/ https://www.homerow.app/, when I was back on windows in the bad old days of the early 2000s I ran a lot of software to facilitate my workflows by tweaking the system ui/ux. But windows in my house is an overly expensive gaming console with occasional web browsing. MacOs is a very 'cozy' as you put it unix. Much of my job is also terminal based so having a standard shell is great (even though I'm still occasionally bitten by the 'i copied this stuff that worked in my terminal onto a linux machine and I forgot my grep/awk/whatever is BSD and not GNU.. fak'). I was excited back when MS announced the Linux Subsystem.. but man fuck ... so hacky. Also why the fuck is no one at MS replacing the standard terminal with something that actually functions properly? I mean sure I upgrade to iterm2 on macos, but using the built in termial is like 90% of the way there. The windows commandline shell (and not like the antique DOS stuff, and I can see that powershell is better, but not better enough that i'm going to bother with it.. like the actual terminal software is my biggest gripe) is simply garbage, no proper support even for the global clipboard as I recall.. different hotkeys than the rest of the system.
forrestthewoods 2y ago
Hi, I’m a software developer that prefers Windows. <waves> I make video games. Most video game devs used Windows. Most video games are played on Windows. In a great twist of irony a majority of gaming hours spent on Linux now do so through SteamOS and is doing so by emulating Windows! (Well, close enough). Developing on Linux sucks and is bad. There’s no good debugger. glibc is a nightmare of bad design. Linux package management is bad. Linux is fine if by programming you actually mean devops though I guess. macOS is kinda sorta ok. But might as well use Windows at that point. Apple Silicon is stupid sexy though. Definitely wish Windows ran on that.
- fastily 2y ago
  Doesn’t this depend on the game engine you use? I’m not a professional video game dev but I’ve dabbled with Godot on non-windows OSes and didn’t find it to be a terrible experience
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    Godot is cool. It’s currently for hobbyists. Unity works great on macOS. Mobile devs are probably mostly on macOS and Unity. PC and console devs are all Windows though. Unreal probably works ok on macOS. But as the games are all PC and console games the devs are on Windows. Debugging consoles is typically done via Visual Studio only. And the adult version, not VSCode.
- tylerchilds 2y ago
  i would like to highlight, and not discredit, the great work valve has done for the linux ecosystem, namely in getting arch based distros to a quality that hacker news comments can write it off as “emulating windows” for example, all my non-windows, non-steam gamepad support stems from valve investing in improving upstream compatibility to where devices just work, without needing to go to a vendor website to download an .exe for a driver— now that’s emulating windows.
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
SideQuark 2y ago
I know plenty, devs all over the spectrum. And the data back it up. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/ https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/
- bitvoid 2y ago
  This is the question from the survey: > What is the primary operating system in which you work? It doesn't ask anything about preference and I wager most people don't have a say in OS for their jobs. Same reason that Microsoft Teams is the most "popular" synchronous tool, yet so low in the "admired" section. That's not to say you're wrong, just that the data you linked to does not "back it up".
  - echoangle 2y ago
    The question isn’t wether they want to use windows but if they’re productive using it. Unless you want to claim that a large proportion of devs isn’t productive, having a proportion of devs use windows proves that it works.
    - bitvoid 2y ago
      It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". > I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
      - echoangle 2y ago
        > It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. I would assume that companies are semi-rational actors and would switch if they could improve productivity that way. Especially since some sectors (graphic design for example) seem to prefer MacOS while others don’t. Of course there are some other factors (support, network effect, purchase cost) but if windows was just plainly unproductive, surely it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. > Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". True, the survey doesn’t prove they actually prefer windows, u missed that context.
happymellon 2y ago
God, where I work makes me use a Mac. Absolutely terrible functionally, but I'm sure it looks pretty enough to some people that the papercuts don't matter. Even after using one at various roles over the past 10+ years or so, I'm far more productive on my Lenovo with Fedora.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  You're not making a great case for Windows.
  - happymellon 2y ago
    Wasn't trying to but I may have accidentally replied to the wrong comment. Windows is god awful, Macs at least have virtual desktops that mostly work. Windows sort of has them, but its really an afterthought. Hopefully you don't get an application trying to grab focus on an alternative VD, at best it will switch, but I've seen it lock interactions until you find it.
vips7L 2y ago
You can rip Windows from my cold dead hands. It just works.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  Most of the time.
  - jaredhallen 2y ago
    60% of the time, it works every time.

thorncorona 2y ago

Most of the software world is on Windows.

philwelch 2y ago
Maybe if you count game development. And, if you’re generous, development environments that run inside a Linux VM hosted by Windows (WSL counts).
emptiestplace 2y ago
It's really bad, though. Like ... objectively abysmal. No other popular platform is more dev-hostile. I think most folks are there because they lack choice or experience with alternatives.
- eitland 2y ago
  Mac user here, and I think Mac really isn't far away from being worst. Between only now finally getting tiling[1], menus filled with items I haven't seen anyone use, and since WSL came on Windows it is now the absolutely most clumsy mainstream thing to install a standard tool. Oh, and shortcuts. I still use it because it is silent, has a good display, just works when I open it, has a battery that actually last all day and because IT departments don't know how to lock it down. [1]: although I cannot use it because then I would have to re-enable "spaces pr screen" which
  - emptiestplace 2y ago
    Hm. I spend most of my time in iTerm. MacOS is Unixy and cozy. WSL definitely is clumsy - actually, everything to do with containers in Windows is a pain in the ass to deal with. Run Windows in kvm, not the other way around. Have you tried Rectangle? It's not automatic, but I find it a reasonable compromise. Last I tried, Yabai et. al. were all pretty flaky compared to proper x11 twms.
    - sleepybrett 2y ago
      For my window management on mac os I wrote some javascript and use https://github.com/kasper/phoenix https://github.com/kasper/phoenix I will concede that macos default out of the box also has some UI/UX issues for people who are or want to be 'hands on keyboard 100% of the time' but there are a few tools out there that I've found for myself that solve many of the problems. Phoenix being one, but also recently homerow https://www.homerow.app/ https://www.homerow.app/, when I was back on windows in the bad old days of the early 2000s I ran a lot of software to facilitate my workflows by tweaking the system ui/ux. But windows in my house is an overly expensive gaming console with occasional web browsing. MacOs is a very 'cozy' as you put it unix. Much of my job is also terminal based so having a standard shell is great (even though I'm still occasionally bitten by the 'i copied this stuff that worked in my terminal onto a linux machine and I forgot my grep/awk/whatever is BSD and not GNU.. fak'). I was excited back when MS announced the Linux Subsystem.. but man fuck ... so hacky. Also why the fuck is no one at MS replacing the standard terminal with something that actually functions properly? I mean sure I upgrade to iterm2 on macos, but using the built in termial is like 90% of the way there. The windows commandline shell (and not like the antique DOS stuff, and I can see that powershell is better, but not better enough that i'm going to bother with it.. like the actual terminal software is my biggest gripe) is simply garbage, no proper support even for the global clipboard as I recall.. different hotkeys than the rest of the system.

forrestthewoods 2y ago

Hi, I’m a software developer that prefers Windows. <waves> I make video games. Most video game devs used Windows. Most video games are played on Windows. In a great twist of irony a majority of gaming hours spent on Linux now do so through SteamOS and is doing so by emulating Windows! (Well, close enough). Developing on Linux sucks and is bad. There’s no good debugger. glibc is a nightmare of bad design. Linux package management is bad. Linux is fine if by programming you actually mean devops though I guess. macOS is kinda sorta ok. But might as well use Windows at that point. Apple Silicon is stupid sexy though. Definitely wish Windows ran on that.

fastily 2y ago
Doesn’t this depend on the game engine you use? I’m not a professional video game dev but I’ve dabbled with Godot on non-windows OSes and didn’t find it to be a terrible experience
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  Godot is cool. It’s currently for hobbyists. Unity works great on macOS. Mobile devs are probably mostly on macOS and Unity. PC and console devs are all Windows though. Unreal probably works ok on macOS. But as the games are all PC and console games the devs are on Windows. Debugging consoles is typically done via Visual Studio only. And the adult version, not VSCode.
tylerchilds 2y ago
i would like to highlight, and not discredit, the great work valve has done for the linux ecosystem, namely in getting arch based distros to a quality that hacker news comments can write it off as “emulating windows” for example, all my non-windows, non-steam gamepad support stems from valve investing in improving upstream compatibility to where devices just work, without needing to go to a vendor website to download an .exe for a driver— now that’s emulating windows.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago

SideQuark 2y ago

I know plenty, devs all over the spectrum. And the data back it up. https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/ https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology/

bitvoid 2y ago
This is the question from the survey: > What is the primary operating system in which you work? It doesn't ask anything about preference and I wager most people don't have a say in OS for their jobs. Same reason that Microsoft Teams is the most "popular" synchronous tool, yet so low in the "admired" section. That's not to say you're wrong, just that the data you linked to does not "back it up".
- echoangle 2y ago
  The question isn’t wether they want to use windows but if they’re productive using it. Unless you want to claim that a large proportion of devs isn’t productive, having a proportion of devs use windows proves that it works.
  - bitvoid 2y ago
    It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". > I don't know a single software developer that prefers windows anymore.
    - echoangle 2y ago
      > It seemed like "productive" was used in a relative sense. Would all those people be more productive on macOS or Linux? That's not clear. I would assume that companies are semi-rational actors and would switch if they could improve productivity that way. Especially since some sectors (graphic design for example) seem to prefer MacOS while others don’t. Of course there are some other factors (support, network effect, purchase cost) but if windows was just plainly unproductive, surely it wouldn’t be as popular as it is. > Also, I thought the parent was replying to the following part, considering they said "I know plenty". True, the survey doesn’t prove they actually prefer windows, u missed that context.

happymellon 2y ago

God, where I work makes me use a Mac. Absolutely terrible functionally, but I'm sure it looks pretty enough to some people that the papercuts don't matter. Even after using one at various roles over the past 10+ years or so, I'm far more productive on my Lenovo with Fedora.

spiderfarmer 2y ago
You're not making a great case for Windows.
- happymellon 2y ago
  Wasn't trying to but I may have accidentally replied to the wrong comment. Windows is god awful, Macs at least have virtual desktops that mostly work. Windows sort of has them, but its really an afterthought. Hopefully you don't get an application trying to grab focus on an alternative VD, at best it will switch, but I've seen it lock interactions until you find it.

vips7L 2y ago

You can rip Windows from my cold dead hands. It just works.

spiderfarmer 2y ago
Most of the time.
- jaredhallen 2y ago
  60% of the time, it works every time.