From: Richard Ive <richard@...>
Date: 2009-02-10T03:54:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Which is the best development environment? Windows Vs Linux

David Masover wrote:
> priyankeshu wrote:
>> i don't have a very extensive knowledge of programming...
>>   
>
> I'm going to guess you don't have a very extensive knowledge of system 
> administration, either. If that's true, here's a quick comparison:
>
> Points in favor of Linux:
> - Many Rubygems require C extensions. Unless they have 
> Windows-specific versions already, they're going to be painful to get 
> working.
> - You'll probably be deploying on a Unix-like system. It's nice to 
> have your development environment match.
> - Also, Git is cool. But the Windows ports just aren't as good.
>
> Points in favor of Windows:
> - You don't know Linux. If something goes wrong with your system, it 
> could take much longer to debug it than it would with Windows, at 
> least until you know it better.
> - Ruby is cross-platform, and so is Rails. It's very unlikely that 
> your program will behave differently on Windows than Linux, unless you 
> do something stupid.
> - You probably don't know Git. Tortoise SVN will be easier to learn.
>
> My recommendation would be, if you want to get something done RIGHT 
> NOW, just stick with Windows. For the long term, you'll really be 
> better off with Linux or OS X.
>
>
Personally, having developed on OS X, Windows and Linux I would say 
Windows is the better operating system to develop on. With the GUI rails 
provides there is a lot more functionality readily available to you from 
the desktop. As David said: There *should* be no difference to your code 
running on any platform, however if you wanted to be 100% sure, I'd 
check that out.

If you're new to programming, and have used Windows a lot longer than 
Linux, I'd stick with Windows. You'll get a lot further with your 
learning curve as you wont have to cover anything operating system related.