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Every developer I know from work and uni uses either Linux or Mac for development (most of them are web devs), never seen anyone using Windows for development purposes :/

How, what and why do you develop on Windows? Not bashing, just curious

Comments
  • 11
    I use Windows for developing C# and because I love to use Visual Studio
  • 4
    It really depends on what you're developing. For web development, I've found that having my workstation mirror my production environment can be helpful. For mobile development, Visual Studio on a Windows box has become one of my favorites, as well as when I'm building desktop apps.

    Really though, you can build for anything from pretty much anywhere, it just depends on what you're comfortable with.
  • 22
    > Not "bash"ing
    Well, how would you if you are on Windows? ;-)
  • 4
  • 5
    How: Visual Studio.
    What: Desktop applications.
    Why: Money!
  • 2
    @hawkes windows subsystem for linux, easy.
  • 1
    @Hallelouia you must be fun at lan parties
  • 2
    I was a Linux user since young age and I started my development on Linux so I can't answer that but after almost a year in CS course, a friend of mine wanted to learn programming. Well basics weren't any problem but once I started teaching him about tools and libraries for larger things, it quickly became an issue. You see, because how Linux & Mac(UNIX Compliant) are structured, you can easily repurpose many things to work on each other rather easily. But since very rarely do people use windows for development, sometimes some libraries have bugs and hard coded paths or instructions that aren't compatible with windows and sometimes goes unnoticed for very long. I have an habit of finding relatively obscure (but good) libraries and using/ refering them to people because they are often free of shenanigans of the bigger libraries for smaller projects. At the end, it was easier to just switch to Linux and he loved it too. This is my reason. Tools on windows aren't that good sometimes.
  • 1
    @flag0 now I know that using hard coded paths and instructions isn't a good practice but for smaller projects and for teaching stuff to people you don't want the extra complexity that comes with the larger more popular tools. And I know Visual Studio and other IDEs do exist for windows but I guess you would also agree that there are sometimes extra steps in setting up certain tools that you just dont want. Plus many a times the instructions are just for Linux or Mac. Except for some commands, you can follow the same instructions. On windows, things are totally different.
  • 1
    Most of our customers at work want client/server (enterprise) applications for windows. Thats why.
  • 0
    @hawkes we also have bash in windows now.
  • 1
    The majority of the npm packages work under Windows as well. + I'm using a package manager, openssh and also got GNU Coreutils on Windows. If I really need Linux I have a vm ready for it.

    I also know how environment variables work in powershell, I have my PS prompt custom (the same you can do for bash), I'm using ConEmu for a more advanced terminal. There's aws-cli for powershell as well and other popular cli tools. The only thing I'm missing is the obvious docker. Etc.
  • 1
    Home: because I also use it for gaming.

    Work: all the computers had windows on them, and I'm also too lazy to install Linux.

    And mainly because I still haven't bought a laptop yet.
  • 0
    Haven't touched development on Windows in ages, but the time I did, I used vagrant (https://www.vagrantup.com). Heck I even use it on my Linux now.
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