Favorite OS?

[brewer]

[LastPoet]

Prefer macOS to Windows. Would love to learn Linux as I want to get into coding of some kind. Not sure what I want to do with it, though.

You can code in any platform. I suggest C/C++, but those have a steep learning curve. Perhaps Java, since memory management isn't a need.

As to what to do, heh, make a game or some sort of app to help you on other endeavours in your life. I have been coding small educational games for my 3 y.o daughter. I am almost finished with a pacman version where the player is a ghost that has to stop 3 pacmen from eating the dots, since she likes the ghosts more.

[zebo-the-fat]

Linux Mint

[Fake Messiah]

Windows '95, now that was an OS with the style. I especially liked that it had that hippie desktop theme, I mean they would never have something like that again.

[mordant]

All my family's laptops run Mac OS. Via RDP, 100% of my income is programming on Windows Server. It's a nice balance. While I don't like some aspects of Apple's UX, on balance it is far better than dealing with Windows 10 as a client OS, from all accounts I've heard, anyway.

I have played in the past with Ubuntu but it never seems to go anywhere.

I live just off the Cornell campus and recently discovered they run a fully authorized factory service operation for Apple. They just can't advertise it because they are a non-profit. Since the nearest Apple Store is over an hour away, this was a game-changing discovery; I have had two aging MacBook Airs get new batteries and keycaps recently, greatly extending their life. Also have had a couple of newer MacBook Pros fixed under warranty at no cost. Our commitment to the Apple ecosystem extends to our phones; we have a 7 Plus, an 8 and an 11 Pro Max (the latter for my wife, mainly for its camera tech; she is quite the shutterbug).

[EgoDeath]

Prefer macOS to Windows. Would love to learn Linux as I want to get into coding of some kind. Not sure what I want to do with it, though.

You can code in any platform. I suggest C/C++, but those have a steep learning curve. Perhaps Java, since memory management isn't a need.

As to what to do, heh, make a game or some sort of app to help you on other endeavours in your life. I have been coding small educational games for my 3 y.o daughter. I am almost finished with a pacman version where the player is a ghost that has to stop 3 pacmen from eating the dots, since she likes the ghosts more.

What do you mean by "you can code in any platform?"

[zebo-the-fat]

You can write code (in C+ for example) on a Mac, Windows, Linux whatever you like

[EgoDeath]

I'm aware you can write code on any operating system... I was just saying that people who are into coding seem to be really into Linux, and so it's an OS I'd like to learn how to use at some point. Not sure why programmers prefer it though...

Also, funny video about Ubuntu...

[polymath257]

Linux Mint with Cinnamon

[mordant]

I'm aware you can write code on any operating system... I was just saying that people who are into coding seem to be really into Linux, and so it's an OS I'd like to learn how to use at some point. Not sure why programmers prefer it though...

I would say that programmers generally express their preference more over languages and platforms (Java runtime, .NET runtime, LAMP, etc) than over operating systems.

Most of my expertise is in .NET because that is where I have found the vast majority of the demand coming from business, at least with the steadiest work and highest rates.

There used to be an argument that Linux was better because it was open source and non-proprietary and it was something of a religious point that many developers made (no working to benefit M$FT / the Evil Empire). But that argument doesn't hold much water these days, now that most of .NET has been open-sourced and now that it runs cross-platform including on Linux.

The question of platform preference generally comes down to tooling (Visual Studio is superb, and even non-users give it grudging respect), platform, languages, and, if you're writing line-of-business apps, business adoption. For the latter, you're looking at .NET or Java essentially. The choice of database influences things, too. .NET has the best support for Sql Server and Java plays particularly well with Oracle, but there's really nothing preventing you using Oracle or MySql or Postgres with .NET or Sql Server from Java, etc.

My situation is a good case in point. As I said, I'm in the Apple ecosystem for hardware and client OS, but spend several hours a day working on Windows Server 2012 via RDP, using Visual Studio 2017 and a mix of C# and VB.NET with a smattering of Python.

My colleagues with the same client use Windows 10, mostly on Surface devices, for their clients; either sort of client works fine. Linux would work fine for that matter, unless you wanted to run Visual Studio locally or something.

Choose Linux for all the free / open source tooling if you're interested in learning stuff like Perl and bash as glue for a lot of small utilities written in C, Java, Rust, Ruby and the like. But personally I have not found the best personal revenue potential with that toolset. Your mileage may vary. Certainly people develop back end services on top of that, very successfully, particularly large-scale custom stuff like Twitter and FB. But I have had the best luck with the .NET / WinTel ecosystem and small to medium sized companies as clients.