Which is the best development environment? Windows Vs Linux

Ruby
1

I just started learnign Rails and i think it’s quite cool! I have just
done some basic stuff till now

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…

My purpose of learning RoR is to create websites with Google maps
Mashups and social network sites…

i don’t have a very extensive knowledge of programming…

right now i have aptana radrails installed … i am happy with it …

Should i stick with Windows … or it would be better to switch to
Linux ?

2

i have used ROR for one year , same with you i have used the apatana and
radrails . i am doing quite well since i have used to windows.if you
only
want to use ROR i recomand windows at least you can save your time to
get
used to Linux.
if you have to use linux i recomand Ubuntu by personly . it is easy to
use

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:09 PM, priyankeshu

3

rustam mamat wrote:

i have used ROR for one year , same with you i have used the apatana and
radrails . i am doing quite well since i have used to windows.if you only
want to use ROR i recomand windows at least you can save your time to get
used to Linux.
if you have to use linux i recomand Ubuntu by personly . it is easy to use

See about getting the free VMware player or server and setting up an
Ubuntu VM image to try it out.

There are advantages to developing and testing in an environment similar
to the deployment platform (which is typically some Unix).

–
James B.

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

4

In any “vs” question you tend to get answers on both sides regardless
of how crummy one side is in comparison. I think you should try
Linux and decide for yourself. Linux won’t cost you a cent and you
can always switch back and forth. Just keep in mind that you won’t
learn all Linux can do in a day. You’ll need a bit of patience.

For two many reasons to list, I’d have to agree with the
“professional guy” and say that Linux is generally a far better tool
for making Internet applications.

5

See about getting the free VMware player or server and setting up an
Ubuntu VM image to try it out.

Sun’s VirtualBox is another quite usable option. I think questions
like “should I switch to …” are really a thing of the past since
those VMs allow you to use whatever OS[1] you want for whatever task
they are most appropriate. I also found linux to some extent easier to
set up in a VM. Performance penalty depends on your hardware though
(hardware virtualization, memory etc.).

[1] With the exception of Mac OSX which AFAIK you’re not allowed to
run in a VM on non-Apple hardware. Definitely not cool.

6

I started the same as you, learning rails on windows, but eventually
switched to linux. I would recommend you stick with windows for now -
its
not going to hinder your abilities as far as learning rails or being
productive in rails goes. When you have a good grasp of rails concepts,
then
ponder making the switch.

I find that there is less hand-holding in linux in general, so one
learns a
lot more but the learning curve is steeper. As far as development tools
go,
Ive always preferred lighter editors to big IDE’s, so I use Vim and an
excellent rails plugin that I’m sure can be found by googling, if you
are
interested.

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:09 AM, priyankeshu

7

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.

8

David M. wrote:

  • Also, Git is cool. But the Windows ports just aren’t as good.

It seems perfectly fine. The release notes indicate some issues for
certain things, but I’ve not found any problems in day-to-day usage.

  • You probably don’t know Git. Tortoise SVN will be easier to learn.

If git is not preferred, mercurial would be a better choice. Might as
well get familiar with a DVCS.

–
James B.

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

9

Yeah I’m a noob, and I tried using linux before and I spent a great deal
of
time trying to figure other things out instaed of actually writing code.
Very frustrating, and discouraging especially if your a new to Ruby or
any
language. Me personally I would stick to windows, then once you become
comfortable, go back to Linux :).

Kindest Regards

10

James B. wrote:

David M. wrote:

  • Also, Git is cool. But the Windows ports just aren’t as good.

It seems perfectly fine. The release notes indicate some issues for
certain things, but I’ve not found any problems in day-to-day usage.

The big one was performance, unless this has been resolved. As Git was
really designed for Unix, for awhile, the Windows port was either Cygwin
or MinGW, and both came with performance hits.

  • You probably don’t know Git. Tortoise SVN will be easier to learn.

If git is not preferred, mercurial would be a better choice. Might as
well get familiar with a DVCS.

Agreed, but Tortoise has a nice Windows GUI.

11

David M. wrote:

working.
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.

12

Richard Ive wrote:

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.

Now I’m confused. What GUI is provided for Rails on Windows, but not
other platforms?

The only one I can think of is Aptana, which exists for Linux, and maybe
the TextMate URLs, where TextMate only exists for OS X. Maybe I’m out of
touch?

13

On Feb 9, 3:09 am, priyankeshu [email protected] wrote:

i don’t have a very extensive knowledge of programming…

right now i have aptana radrails installed … i am happy with it …

Should i stick with Windows … or it would be better to switch to
Linux ?

Switch to Linux (I recommend Ubuntu 32bit) – and that’s regardless of
Rails.

There is so much to gain by making the switch, it’s not even fair to
Windows really.

The trick to making the switch though is forcing yourself to stick
with it for a month. At first it is very temping to switch back b/c
you are not sure how to do certain things.

T.

14

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 05:09:15PM +0900, priyankeshu wrote:

i don’t have a very extensive knowledge of programming…

right now i have aptana radrails installed … i am happy with it …

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.