

Why I use Windows and not Linux - JerusaEnt
http://bzupnick.com/blog/?p=14

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rbanffy
Maybe we should give an "enable up/downvote" cookie when the user clicks
through the link and actually sees the article.

I cannot imagine 5 people (currently with 6 points) upvoted this after
actually reading it...

~~~
aespinoza
I read it, and I upvoted. I did that because I believe he has interesting
points in it.

People commenting here are just focusing on certain points of the article and
not the whole sentiment.

What the author is saying is that even though he likes linux a lot, he is more
productive in windows. I can see that happening. Fixing things in Linux is
difficult, specially coming from a Windows world.

~~~
rbanffy
I re-read it and it still looks like a rant from an uninformed person. He
spent a month with Linux and didn't notice NetBeans or Eclipse? Is there ANY
programmer on Earth that doesn't know those? He claims Windows enjoys better
"hardware, software, IT guys" because it's more popular. Linux is only
unpopular in PCs. In every other segment it trounces its competition.

And maybe you have a point about fixing things. On Windows, people just
reinstall or download a freeware tool that cleans up some specific mess and
may (or may not) make things better. But the truth is it's much harder to
break stuff on Linux than it is on Windows. And on Linux, you may be tempted
to actually find out what the problem was (because you are able to) and fix
it, which is much harder than just reinstalling the thing.

Except for the fact that, after you do a clean install, you'll have to
download missing drivers, service packs, run Windows Update a couple times and
reboot the machine each and every time something major gets updated, which
happens a good couple times in this process). Last time I tried, reinstalling
a Windows machine from scratch took me a day.

Reinstalling my Ubuntu box takes, usually, less than an hour.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Does not matter how popular Linux is in other segments. That is not going to
help things on my desktop. Unpopularity is a valid argument in this context.

~~~
rbanffy
He claims to be a developer (something hard to believe for all he knows seems
to be Visual Studio). He's not a law student.

If you think Windows is popular, go to any respectable compsi department and
look around. Go to any conference not sponsored by Microsoft. Go to any place
where someone is pushing the envelope. You'll find plenty Linux, plenty OSX
and a couple Windows machines.

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DanBC
I have no idea why I should be interested in whether or not someone uses a
particular OS. Especially when that person appears to be an uninformed youth.

I would be much more interested in "Why this government department decided
that Linux is a good fit for some situations and what they're doing to
migrate" style article. I'd hope that HN would avoid the traditional flame-
bait; but perhaps that's optimistic.

------
Gigablah
Here's a summary.

The author uses Windows instead of Linux because:

1\. Linux isn't as popular as Windows

2\. He can't use Visual Studio on Linux

Compelling argument!

~~~
Udo
For him those may well be compelling reasons. Conversely, I'm not sure if it
makes sense to get people to switch OS platforms when they are actually happy
with what they are using now. It certainly doesn't hurt to stay informed about
the capabilities of software you're not using currently (in some areas it
should probably be mandatory), but switching in the absence of good
personally-applicable advantages is simply not a reasonable cause of action
for most people.

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tmcw
Old flamewar, same argument, move along folks.

~~~
pmr_
It's just so hard to resist the flame bait. Although I really believe that the
author tried to be honest here and simply missed a few things that the
platform has to offer and tried to make an argument out of his own failure.

But the naivety to believe that *NIX platforms would exist for a few centuries
and that none of the smart people that used them got the idea to write a
debugger, is just a little bit too much to take.

------
asto
tl;dr: The author failed to fully explore the tools available for Linux and
uses Windows on account of his ignorance

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disgruntledphd2
Interesting argument. Personally, for all the stuff I do, Linux is far
superior. Give me Emacs, R and LaTeX working out of the box and available in
easy downloads with no spaces in my paths, and I'm happy. I can understand
that others may have different perspectives.

That being said, has he tried Emacs? As far as I know with GDB and gcc and
flymake, pretty much everything he wants to do is available.

~~~
aespinoza
Lol... trying to make this a Vim vs Emacs rant now? It started as a Windows vs
Linux rant... :D

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sudobear
He says he programs, but he no doubt means that he clicks and drags stuff
around in visual studio. Anyone who has never heard of eclipse, netbeans, or
intellij is not a programmer. I'm sorry but he's just not. I'm having trouble
believing this is for real.

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AshleysBrain
Makes you realise how it's a clever strategy to make excellent dev tools for a
platform. Visual Studio is really one of the best, and developers will go
where the tools make it easy for them.

~~~
zyfo
Yes, because all the best C programmers use Windows.

~~~
PyErr_SetString
Then again, most programmers today aren't C programmers. And developing in
Java/C# really makes a good IDE mandatory.

The point is valid, even if you have a point in what you write too.

~~~
rbanffy
I have to disagree with the original opinion, that Visual Studio is the best
IDE ever. It is, if you are developing on Windows and for Windows on
Microsoft-endorsed languages. If this is not the case, it's far from optimal.

~~~
PyErr_SetString
Come on, you have to give me something to argue with. I can't just sit here
agreeing with people. :) Yes, Visual Studio outside the MS sphere is not the
greatest. C++, C#, VB.Net, F# - fine. Does anyone use it for anything else?

~~~
rbanffy
> I can't just sit here agreeing with people.

Agree when you agree. Disagree when you don't.

The only important thing is to do it politely ;-)

------
wavephorm
I'm porting some of my software to Windows. I haven't used Windows in years.
Doing things like opening a DOS console and typing "cd C:\" was like going
back in time about 25 years. And then I had to create a Batch script using old
BASIC style commands, using REM at the start of comments... It's like Windows
is stuck in time, and Microsoft's primary way of making money is by keeping
this crusty operating system running, and milking enterprise IT budgets as
long as possible.

~~~
AndrewDucker
If you're using XP or later then you shouldn't be using DOS batch files you
should be using Powershell, which is what MS write all of their own CLI
interfaces to work with.

