I used to be a (fiery) Windows hater. I’d tell anyone who’d listen what a terrible OS it was and how using it was the sure sign of a luser. I’m no longer that way. It’s not that I’ve become a convert, it’s just that I’ve stopped thinking about it at all. It’s been easily 20 years since I’ve had to deal with or even be on a Windows machine.
Of course, some intelligent and reasonable folks find themselves forced by circumstances to use Windows. One such person is Duncan Lock, who after using Linux for 15 years, took a new job and found himself in a Windows shop.
He writes about his experience of moving from Linux to Windows and in the same way that it’s hard to look away from a traffic accident, I found myself reading it. I expected that he was going to tell me that Windows had improved and become an OS that a developer could embrace. I needn’t have worried. Not much, it appears, has changed in the last 20 years.
The terminal and shell—even Powershell—are still terrible and basically unusable. Package management is nonexistent. Customization is essentially impossible. There’s much more—Lock has a whole list of inadequacies that you can read about if you’re interested in such things.
I’m not interested. Not even to gloat. For me the value of Lock’s post is that it means I can go back to sleep and not think about Windows for another 20 years. Perhaps by then things will have improved. But probably not.