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Discussion on: My development environment setup (Part 1)

 
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André Jacques

I can't talk for others, but provisioning tools such as SaltStack, the POSIX terminal (that I'm sorry, Powershell is a long way off) and the ease of use of SSH (in both ways), all of that combined with the fact that the majority of servers on the Internet are running Linux (and the place I worked and my VPS provider does too) and the cost of Microsoft license is the reason why I prefer Linux over Windows. Furthermore, I've always hated the Windows Filesystem. I can't count the number of time I had ACL issues on Windows, sometimes I needed to use third-party super-user plugin to force a folder to be read-write for everyone (like an upload folder for instance).

I'm not a stubborn person, and I can admit that VisualStudio is probably the best IDE, after trying IntelliJ, Eclipse, Netbeans and XCode. SQL Server is a real good SGBD for the price to pay (compare to IBM DB2 or Oracle Database 12i). The real problem is the licensing: so complicated for nothing. SQL Server can be bought per number of people connecting, or per core processor. You are forced to buy Windows Enterprise or higher.

Lastly, Linux can run efficiently on older, less powerful computer compare to Windows. Running a dozen websites on a Windows server costing 4k might not be to the reach of small enterprise. It may be more efficient to buy 3, less powerful computers, to run with a load balancing, a fail-over system that cost the same price running Linux. The money you spend on licenses (that can easily cost in the thousands) can be invested in training. To be fair, it is easier to find professional for windows compare to Linux.