[Haifux] advanced of programming in Linux

[Shlomi Fish]

On Monday 02 Nov 2009 14:46:58 Shahar Dag wrote:
> Hello all
> 
> everything is correct:
> some jobs are easier on Linux
> knowing another OS make you a better programmer
> Linux is free & so are most of its tools
> 
> but what I am looking for is:
> a description of a simple every day job
> that windows people will say that they will have to spent half a day
> programming to automate it.
> that widows people will admit that it is something reasonable to do.
> a job that can be accomplished on Linux with 10 minutes
> and the result should be to bring the Windows people to consider Linux (at
> list) as their development environment
> 

If it can be done in Linux using the standard GNU/Linux user-land and kernel-
land, then it most probably can also be easily done in Windows (or for both 
Windows and Linux) using cygwin, the Win32 ports of Perl/Python/Ruby, and a 
lot of other open-source software that is cross-platform and has been ported 
to Windows. The advantages of Linux and other open-source UNIXes is not as 
much in availability of software for it (thought, admittedly, programs do tend 
to run better there), but rather in its open-source nature that allows for 
customisation, proliferation of distributions, availability of software, a 
different uncontrolled package manager and dependency installer, better 
security, a more seamless integration of the FOSS components than Windows and 
an "it just works" ability, the ability to study "low-level" code, etc. These 
technical advantages are made possible due to its free-as-in-speech nature.

If you want to exclude cygwin and other Windows-based FOSS out of the mix, 
then you're making the classic mistake of thinking that the issue is "Windows 
vs. Linux" rather than "Proprietary software vs. FOSS". A capable Windows 
programmer who is well-versed in open-source scripting and development 
solutions is likely to be able to hack something quick for Windows, without 
much more hassle than a Linux developer can do the same for Linux. This is not 
a problem with Linux, but rather a feature of FOSS that allows it to be 
available everywhere.

It would be useful if you either try to contrast FOSS tools and platforms 
against their proprietary equivalents, or alternatively explain what kind of 
GNU/Linux-specific task are you interested in.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> Shahar

[Snipped]

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Understand what Open Source is - http://shlom.in/oss-fs

Chuck Norris read the entire English Wikipedia in 24 hours. Twice.