Windows PC's are literally just consoles

Windows is trying to integrate WSL so badly but until it's seamless Windows just won't be a dev environment

OSX4LYF

In my opinion, windows will never be a good dev environment, because it simply wasn't built that way. It was made for consumers that need automatic updates forced on them because they are unable to understand how computers work. How do you take that and change it into a dev env? You emulate linux on it? Oh waw now we Don't need to use any sort or *nix because we can pretend *nix on top of Windows! I mean you're still stuck with all the common user bloat, ads, telemetry, it gobbles up most of your ram and hammers your disk with superfetch... But it has a usable terminal! Weeee..

Yeah no. It's convenient, but not a replacement for a dedicated dev box

So I agree, It's not there yet, but I think making it seemless is not the issue alone!

@Hazarth I beg to differ.

Microsoft started out building developer tools in the late 70’ties with basic interpreters before going into other parts like operating system and office programs.

They have always built good tools and having been a developer for almost four decades on both windows and linux I can say both work just fine, anyone thinking different obviously just hates one of them ;)

And I did hate them for trying to starve of web programming, but that was a business decision to avoid competition with office.

Generally the IDE’s Microsoft built has been better than most others except the one for turbo pascal, and try hired that guy, Anders Hejlsberg, to build C# ;)

And what integration of WSL has to do with being a dev platform I fail to see.

Sure it means that linux devs can work on windows, but how is that bad for developers, you do not have to, it just makes it easier if you regularly build both linux and windows programs since you do not need to have multiple computers or dual boot.

Try building a windows program on linux ;). That works way worse.

@Voxera WSL is not used by Linux and Windows app devs. It's used by Juniors who copy commands into the terminal without a thought in the world with how it works and bork their local environment and call you to fix it for them...

I never hated in Windows until i encountered these Juniors...

@lungdart its definitely used by devs :)

But if its juniors that is the problem, then that is not really a windows problem :P except possibly in that it opens up linux development to more people.

But honestly, script kiddies has been a thing since long ago :)

@Voxera the only good IDE to ever come from MS was Visual Studio, and even that started being bloated an slow since they discontinued VSExpress. I still prefer using VS for my C# stuff

I don't know a single other good IDE from MS except for VSCode which is fine I guess.

How do you fail to see WSL having to do anything with win being a dev platform? Who else other than devs use WSL? It has everything to do with it...

Compiling for windows on linux is perfectly fine, just use windows compilers and link windows versions of the libs... Is WSL really *that* better for cross compiling if I can do the same with a makefile anyway? Not like I need to load an entire virtualized windows just to compile for it...

@Hazarth older .net framework do not have all the features in its mono version. Its only netcore that is truly multi platform

And wsl makes building easier and allows running things without a full virtual environment.

But still, how is integrating WSL making windows less of a dev platform, since that is how I interpreted the original posting.
That by trying to integrate WSL windows somehow was becoming worse for devs :)

But that could just have been a misunderstanding of cause :)

@Voxera oh no. It doesn't make it less of a dev platform. That's not what I wanted to say at all. It still adds value, no question about that.

What I said is that adding WSL alone doesn't make up for all the bloat that already comes with win and makes it unusable for a proper dev environment in the first place.

Like, my ideal dev Environment for example doesn't have ads in the start menu, doesn't force me to restart my computer at a gunpoint because of an update that and doesn't Smash my disk with superfetch everytime it starts. And I doubt that's just me. Some may be able to ignore it or live with it, but I doubt anyone really *wants* it... You just don't really get a choice, which makes windows dead to me as far as dev env goes. The system is already not marketed for me as a dev, adding a few dev features like WSL on top doesn't fix any of the turn-offs

It's good, but it will never be enough.

Developing Windows software on Linux traditionally is a PITA.
So i assume, that Windows software is mostly written and compiled on Windows machines.
There is a hell of a lot of Windows software out there...
So Windows obviously is a dev environment for Windows devs.

And fifteen years ago, Visual Studio was a really good IDE for Windows development (today i use JetBrains' Rider for .net).

I still expect Windows to eventually become a pure SaaS client - but we definitely aren't there yet...

@jasonpezzimenti I've never done osx app dev, but I've heard you can only do it on osx.

@jasonpezzimenti probably true for Windows stuff too.

Turns out any system can dev for non proprietary platforms haha.

@Hazarth

I support this 100%.

Windows is practical in the sense that it is cheap and not a bad choice if you need a solid all-rounder - but it does not excel at development. Sure, as a FE developer you can get away with it mostly depending on the tooling that you use, but BE / sys admin folks have it much harder.

OSX and Linux have clear tradeoffs, but I would always prefer something UNIX based for development over Windows any single day. Universal command-line syntax, decent package managers and native shell scripting support are just unrivaled features for me.

Bro I've been a linux dev for 7 years and I can't figure out the Windows cmd/powershell. Development seems impossible

@lopu As a long time (20+ years as work) windows and linux dev I have a hard time to understand why you would have a problem with the windows cmd/powershell.

In many cases you do not need it as much windows software is built to not need it and when you do ps is powerful enough.

Under linux/unix its usually the opposite, very little software outside pure end user programs is built to run fully gui based.

Its just different design philosophies that you need to learn.

Even old cmd is usually enough for any needs I have unless I want to do more advanced server configuration or automating build pipelines in which case ps is just another language.