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The main point is right but the post glosses over some critical details.

Switching from Mac to Linux is pretty easy. Switching from Windows is trickier. The languages are the same but setting up your environment is a chore. Most instructions for setting up local development environments are focused on Unix like systems. If you learned on Windows and switch to Linux or Mac things can be strange for you but luckly there's no shortage of easy setup instructions and terminal one-liners to get you started. If you learned on Mac or Linux and switch to Windows then you'll have a harder time as you always have to make sure you're looking for the Windows instructions or tools.

Want to set up an AMP stack (on your system not using Xampp) on Windows? You're jumping through hoops if you came from any other OS. Want to use multiple Ruby versions? RVM and RBENV don't run on Windows. Experienced programmers can make these switches easily with only some minor annoyances but someone in the first few years of their programming journey will have a much harder time. The way Windows does things isn't necessarily wrong and it's no one's fault that it doesn't have any sort of Unix heritage like every other popular OS these days. But the case can be made that switching to or from Windows can matter depending on the programmer while a Mac to any Linux distro switch has a negligible effect on workflow and productivity.

This isn't about Windows being sucky. It isn't. It's just different enough to warrant a disclaimer, that disclaimer being "while it doesn't matter what platform you develop on for the most part, Windows does things differently enough that switching to or from it can matter if you're somewhat green". These days documentation for most popular tools assume a Unix-like development environment. Windows users need to Google for instructions.

It's also worth noting, like one of the commenters on the original page said, that most Linux GUI tools aren't as good as they are on Mac and Windows so of you're not totally comfortable in the terminal youd better get there or use another OS. There's no shame in preferring a GUI tool and it isn't necessarily the mark of a noob or bad programmer. I'm an alright programmer myself, very comfortable in the terminal, know vi and nano well but prefer a GUI text editor. It's not bad, just different.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the article's point stands but it's a bit of an oversimplification.




Actually, Microsoft now makes it ridiculously easy to install an AMP stack on Windows. Just run the web platform installer and select the bits you want.

http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx




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