Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

I (speaking for myself, obviously, not anyone else on HN) don't hate Microsoft. I use Windows! Windows 8 in fact!

For context because I'm sure some people (I do think there is an anti-MS bias here on HN, though not as pronounced as OP thinks it is) may think I'm some stereotypical Microsoft-using rube. I grew up in the 80s, programming first on the C64 (BASIC, 6510 Assembler), then Amiga, then various UNIX systems (SunOS, IRIX, AIX, Ultrix, Solaris, later Linux).

I avoided Windows like crazy until Windows 2000 came out because prior to that release the idea of using an OS where one process could crash the system at any time seemed ridiculous (post my Amiga days), and running NT was only for "enterprises" (at that time). But since I first started using Windows 2000, Windows has always been my "primary" OS, partly for gaming reasons, partly for access to commercial software (currently Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop), and partly because I simply actually just like the look and feel of it.

In the meantime I spent quite a number of years doing Win32 software development (though now I'm mostly doing Android/Java and some embedded stuff with Go) and to this day, Visual Studio is still the programming environment by which all others I use are measured and found wanting. There are some pretty decent other ones, but I still miss the absolute power of the VS debugger (against C, C++ and C#) and everytime I find myself doing printf-debugging because the FOSS tool I'm using doesn't have solid debugging support I cry a little inside.

I also still do a lot of Linux-based programming these days, each Windows system I use has half a dozen or more Linux VMs running on them regularly, but I still prefer Windows as an overall primary desktop. It is fast and extremely stable these days (hell, the GPU driver can crash due to Nvidia bugs and Windows will just restart that mofo and keep going, how cool is that?).

All that said, yes, Microsoft hasn't always acted in the best interests of the overall industry (but neither has any other company near their size, and Microsoft has gotten better over the years while some others I won't name have gotten worse, IMO). Also, I still haven't found any good reason to buy a WinRT device. But my overall impression of Microsoft is pretty positive.

Agreed. The power of the VS debugger is unparalleled!! You can actually look into everything and figure out exactly what is happening. Though you should try IntelliJ IDEA for Java. I love the "Evaluate expression" feature in their debugger

IDEA's development environments are only ones, in my experience, that outdo MS's. Way better refactoring support (any VS user who doesn't also have a copy of IDEA's Resharper plugin installed is crazy), better debugger. Better all around.

Under the assumption that you're a developer, how do you deal with the lack of a great Terminal/Command line interface on Windows?

As a developer (just jumping in) I'd hazard a guess the same way I deal with the horrific lack on consistency with a command line interface on any posix platform I use.

There is a bit of a shift I find, if I'm doing something all Microsoft, I've got Visual Studio and plugins loaded, it is effectively a 3,000lb sledge hammer. A few years ago it was an effort to ensure my PC had enough RAM to run such a beast, complete with Resharper. However I don't have to leave VS for pretty much anything. This is really nice.

When you get used to having a proper IDE, by that I mean one which does everything you need effortlessly, it you don't really ever go outside it.

Ultimately, as a developer rather than a SysAdmin I never need a CLI for getting code made. Managing servers and such is a different union! However I will say powershell isn't bad at all.

I use command line in both linux and windows, they offer the exact same thing, just different commands. Of course it windows has a few problems with it, but mostly just presentation (like static buffer size for width). I'd say 90% of microsoft tools have a CLI you just have to know how to use them, which is the exact same thing when you are going to linux for the first time.

It's like asking people from the future how do they deal with the lack of internal combustion engines. Well, we kind of don't need them in most cases. Because things evolved. GUI has been invented long enough for everyone to catch up.

You should contact Microsoft and tell them that creating PowerShell was a mistake because GUIs are the future. I'm sure they'll weigh your "GUIs are the future" argument carefully, as we have.

Powershell is actually pretty cool if you embrace it for what it is and don't try to use it like a unix shell.

Of course, through Cygwin, MingW, et al you can also just run bash or whatever shell you want on Windows.

To be honest I don't spend a ton of time in terminal windows on Windows for some of the reasons others mentioned, though I do tend to constantly be using the shell on the Linux VMs I mentioned (often just sshed into a local VM).

As a .Net (work) and FOSS* (free time) developer, I find that the ecosystem just doesn't require the use of the CLI nearly as much. Sure, you can interact with TFS from the CLI (and maybe it's better, I don't know) but the first exposure most have to it is GUI so you learn that way. That's just one example but Visual Studio et. al. tend to take care of many things I use the CLI for on OS X/Linux systems, via a GUI. I'm certainly not saying it's better but it is better than most CLI-gone-GUI tools I've used in the FOSS world. I think this is because Windows dev tools are built for the GUI first (and often have a complete lack of, or a lacking support for, CLI UX) first as opposed to many FOSS tools that assume an understanding of the CLI and are built for that first. Personally I enjoy CLI and, while it has a steeper learning curve, I am more productive with my definition of a "proper" CLI (bash, zsh, etc.) than without. So I am attempting to learn Powershell in order to regain some of lost productivity on Windows. But, that's just me. I know many .Net devs that don't feel that productivity loss without a CLI.

* I use Ruby, Python, and Javascript/Node.JS on a Mac for side projects.

I avoided Windows like crazy until Windows 2000 came out because prior to that release the idea of using an OS where one process could crash the system at any time seemed ridiculous (post my Amiga days), and running NT was only for "enterprises" (at that time).

Ah, the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco, though my favorite limitation of Win9x is actually how it depended on DOS which allowed Caldera to continue the lawsuit against MS.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com