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Comment by bobochan | Hacker News Reader

What baffles me is that it is 2017 and Windows comes with less than it did decades ago. At least prior to Win2000 there was QBasic and edit.com, but now starting to work on a Windows machine means downloading and installing basic tools.

Need to SSH/SFTP? Download. Need to edit code? Download. Python? Download. Perl? Download. A reasonable terminal? Download.

Yes, I might have to go to the Mac App Store and get command line tools for C, C++, Objective-C, etc. It is unfortunate that XQuartz is no longer installed by default, granted. (PowerShell is very nice to work with though, I give MS full credit for that.)

I could live with having to download python, perl, etc., but someone please explain why having an absolutely fundamental ability to edit text and securely connect to work and transfer data to/from remote machines is something that any OS should be shipping without?

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starting to work on a Windows machine means downloading and installing basic tools

While that is true, it's a bit of a moot point imo. I have yet to see an OS which had everything I needed for any actual work installed out of the box. As such, the way to deal with this is have a script download/install everything for you (and eventually copy or link all configuration files). Using Powershell getting any of the examples you mention is basically a one-liner just like for other package management tools, something like `openssh, miniconda, strawberryperl, conemu | Install-Package`. Or you can go more of a DSC way with Powershell Dsc.

Windows does have a C# compiler by default. It is located in the `Windows\Microsoft.NET` folder. Not very discoverable, though.

And starting with Windows 10 a metro app called 'Code Writer' seems to be installed by default for coding. (At least it's there in my installation.) I didn't try it though.

I'm glad. MS has made a lot of good programming tools. I really like Visual Studio and was a huge fan of QuickBasic 4.5 back in the day. Turbo Pascal was the killer app that first enticed me to the PC world.

It still befuddles me why some of this basic functionality cannot be a standard part of Windows. Not every Mac user uses emacs, or even knows how to open the Terminal app, but the fact that basic tools are supported means that there is just a baseline level of infrastructure to work with.

I have a feeling they cut a lot of these things in trying to reduce the install footprint when netbooks/tablets were all the rage.

> but someone please explain why having an absolutely fundamental ability to edit text and securely connect to work and transfer data to/from remote machines is something that any OS should be shipping without?

The ability to edit text _does_ ship on windows - notepad. (not that I'd recommend it but it does exist). Also, OSX doesn't ship with anything better.

FTP isn't a fundamental requirement for everyone, I don't have an FTP client installed on my machine, and don't have any intention of installing one.

Notepad??? OS X has shipped with both emacs and vim since Day 1. I'm sorry, but you seem quite unfamiliar with Macs.

You are correct, I would never suggest anyone have an FTP client; I have that service turned off on every machine I administer. SSH / SFTP are fundamental tools however.

> SSH / SFTP are fundamental tools

They are provided out of the box (and newer versions than OSX ships with) by WSL. As is vim, emacs, apt, etc.

Excellent point. WSL is certainly a step in the right direction.

They are provided in WSL, but the Windows Subsystem for Linux is a separate install atop Windows, and the installation process is currently very complex and lengthy.

Windows key, type "developer mode", hit enter, click "developer mode" (or 3x tabs, space, enter). PowerShell, send "lxrun /install /y"

Done. Pro-tip. Pin PowerShell to your taskbar and drag all the way left. Now you can open it with win+1.

Edit: now with no mouse required!

After going to the Windows store and upgrading to Windows Pro. That's another advantage of OS X- no need to target various OS revisions- the baseline OS IS the OS.

I just sort of assume if you're a developer that you buy the developer version of your software :)

Edit: for reference, home also doesn't come with bitlocker (!?), Domain join, Group Policy, client hyper-v, and others. Don't buy home to do work.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsforbusiness/compare

You've missed a step. After enabling Developer Mode, you need to enable support for WSL in Programs and Features, then restart Windows.

When I tested it on my laptop out of the box that was not the case. Maybe Dell does that on the xps line...?

Am i going mad? Windows has a command line ftp tool, I used it this morning. Is it just a Windows 10 thing? because it was also on my netbook running 8.1 out of the box.

The installation process is not at all complex. You just have to turn on developer mode and check the box that says you want to enable WSL.

Apooogies, I forgot that it ships with emacs and vim. So you use the vanilla installations of emacs and vim for your editing? Or do you download a more recent version and configure plugins? Notepad is a perfectly adequate editor if you need to quickly change a config value, but I wouldn't consider it a usable day to day tool. Nor would I consider a vanilla vim install with no customisation a usable day to day tool.

> I would never suggest anyone have an FTP client; I have that service turned off on every machine I administer. SSH / SFTP are fundamental tools however.

Pedantry at its finest.

I have neither ssh nor sftp on my workstation and I have no need for either.

> The ability to edit text _does_ ship on windows - notepad.

Windows also ships with WordPad, which is a simple word processor.

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