Development tools in Windows

[maiki]

So, in light of my recent computer troubles, I’ve borrowed a Fujitsu T2020 from Justin. It is a little small for my comfort, but the real issue is Windows. I don’t know if this is Vista or the newer one, and I am don’t care to check.

It is amazing to me that the supposedly dominant OS has such suck support for my profession. Maybe all the best (I would also settle for mediocre) development tools cost money to use. If that is the case, I wouldn’t have access to them, because I don’t pay for software before I use it.

My needs are simple, I require a web browser, e-mail client, text editor and ssh client. A jabber client is a nice touch, as well. And yet nearly all of the software I find in Windows is inferior to the software I use in MacOS X, let alone Ubuntu. Wonky.

I use Windows fairly often, of course, but it is as relevant as the XMB dashboard thing on the PlayStation. It is merely the thing that loads my games. If I could boot to Steam, I would. Gaming on a non-console is my guilty pleasure, and I would love for it to change (which would require games to be made to run in X).

At any rate, to all you Windows users out there, I feel for ya. I suggest you get your dual-boot on. There is a whole world of awesome software out there, and the general idea of “windowing” as an interface is the same across the three major OSes.

[maiki]

Kage said:

If you’re curious, here are the development tools I use in Windows:

web browser: I use both Firefox and Chrome, depending on the situation. (I also have to do cross-browser checking in various flavors of Internet Explorer, but that’s beside the point. I don’t do any development in IE, just testing.)
email client: none. I use web-based Gmail.
text editor: Notepad++
SSH client: PuTTY
jabber client: Pidgin

These are all free.

My computer used to dual-boot into Windows and Ubuntu. I set it up mainly because I had never had a dual-boot setup before, and wanted the experience. As it turns out, I almost never booted into Ubuntu, mainly because my games are all in Windows. Gaming and web browsing are the two primary functions of my home machine, and it seemed silly to boot into one OS for one function and another OS for another function, especially when I switch between the two functions fairly frequently. So when I got a new hard drive and did a bunch of re-formatting, re-installing, etc., I went back to plain-old Windows.

Incidentally, it’d be awesome if Steam was a full-fledged OS! Especially if (when?) they make a few more upgrades to their browser.

And finally, a public service announcement from your local friendly, umm, privateer: There are ways to use software before paying for it. Just sayin’.

Ah, I wasn’t aware that Pidgin had a Windows version. Notepad++, I’ve heard of it.

Thanks for the feedback, and that last line endorsement for the package handlers in GNU/Linux distros!