From: Chad Perrin Date: 2009-02-11T09:10:30+09:00 Subject: Re: Which is the best development environment? Windows Vs Linux --0H629O+sVkh21xTi Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 05:09:15PM +0900, priyankeshu wrote: > I just started learnign Rails and i think it's quite cool! I have just > done some basic stuff till now >=20 > i was talking to some professional guy who was working in ruby On > Rails for last 1 year and he said that it would be better if i switch > to linux... >=20 > My purpose of learning RoR is to create websites with Google maps > Mashups and social network sites.. >=20 > i don't have a very extensive knowledge of programming... >=20 > right now i have aptana radrails installed ... i am happy with it ... >=20 > Should i stick with Windows ... or it would be better to switch to > Linux ? My personal preference is actually for FreeBSD -- which is substantially similar, from a typical end-user's point of view, to Linux. There are some significant differences once you get past the surface, though, and it is these differences that make up most of my reason for preferring it. I still prefer something like Debian GNU/Linux over MS Windows by far, though. My recommendations are as follows: 1. If you want to just get into Rails and not have to worry about anything else, stick with MS Windows for now. If you make an OS switch at the same time, and you don't have any other reasons for the switch than to support your Rails development, you should put off investigating a different OS until you feel like you are willing to just devote some time to that. 2. If you want to learn Ruby itself, and you aren't specifically trying to learn it for MS Windows development, I think that a Unix-like OS such as a BSD Unix or Linux-based OS can be one of your best friends. It is much easier to get started writing simple, but *useful*, little automation tools (e.g., shell scripts and similar) in a Unix-like environment than in the relentlessly CLI-hostile environment of MS Windows. 3. Give something Unix-like a try *eventually*. Even MacOS X can help in this regard, though it costs a hell of a lot more to experiment with MacOS X than with something like Debian GNU/Linux or FreeBSD (since with MacOS X you not only don't get a free OS, but also have to buy hardware specific to the OS). There are "easy" introductions to Unix-like OSes, such as Ubuntu Linux, PC-BSD, and DesktopBSD, if you want to try making a complete switch to a Unix-like OS in one shot. If you want to take a more gradual approach, though, I'd recommend doing something like what I originally did. I got a KVM switch, and connected two computers to it side-by-side on my desk. One was my main MS Windows system, and one was a far older Debian system. The KVM swich allowed me to quickly and easily -- and almost seamlessly, without any reboots or changes of peripheral hardware -- switch between the two systems. I could learn the Linux-based system at my leisure, getting into really understanding the system rather than just sticking some gooey (GUI) fat-interface OS on it like Mandrake (Ubuntu didn't even exist then, let alone Mandriva). After a while, I got fed up with some issues with Debian, and made the move to FreeBSD. Along the way, I've tried out a number of other Linux distributions and BSD Unix systems, in some cases professionally, but in terms of OS-of-choice, I've gone MS Windows -> Debian -> FreeBSD. The move from MS Windows to Debian was the most shocking, in several ways, though probably the most shocking part of it was the sudden realization one day that I had gone from thinking of the slower, older Debian box as a toy to play with to using it constantly without even turning on the MS Windows system for a couple of months -- without even noticing the change. I hope that helps answer some of your explicit and implicit questions. --=20 Chad Perrin [ content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] Quoth Larry Wall: "What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?" --0H629O+sVkh21xTi Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkmSF00ACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKUjQACfaYKTDImNeN2pLui5HoGdGTVI NU4An11yREw2dVWxdXrtPHo0h1EDa6k3 =zG8e -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --0H629O+sVkh21xTi--