Thursday 17th November 2011
Programming
I architect, design, write, test and use software for a living. I spend most of my time writing code for enterprise grade Linux systems. I find that Linux provides a very stable and secure deployment foundation. I have written software for Windows environments in the past using C++ and Visual Basic. I had early experience with DOS, dBase and Clipper as well.
I don't have anything against windows per se, after all I use it as a gaming platform because frankly, it's the best OS to use for games. I do however find that windows presents the user with a mess for a user interface, every application and utility seems to have it's own take on what windows UI components should look like and how they should behave. The end result is a platform that is very inconsistent for the user. I think this is driven by the fact that Microsoft tend to reinvent the UI wheel every few of years and developers struggle to stay current. My other main gripe with windows is the lack of security by design; sure Microsoft have retro-fitted a bunch of security features to their operating systems over the years, but even using Windows 7 I get the sinking feeling that deep down inside the OS their are bits of LAN manager still at work.
Linux is a developers paradise. Every tool, compiler, debugger, library, or bit of documentation is freely available usually complete with source code. Even though there is a lot of choice in the Linux world, distributions like Ubuntu, Mint and OpenSuSE still manage to provide a more consistent user experience that Windows.
My preferred user platform (where I browse the web, author documents and compose email) is actually OSX. My Macbook Pro is a great place to work. I still think Linux has the edge in developer tools, but I find OSX a great blend of convenience and robustness.
