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Linux Software

Survey: Linux Draws Windows Developers 27

Posted by timothy from the makes-sense dept.
Twintop writes "According to this story on eWEEK, more Linux developers are coming from Windows backgrounds than from UNIX backgrounds according to a recent study by Evans Data. The original story and the actual survey from Evans Data is available as well."
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Survey: Linux Draws Windows Developers More

Survey: Linux Draws Windows Developers

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  • Not scientific (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClosedSource ( 238333 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:53PM (#5548505)
    The problem is that surveys like this aren't scientific polls, so you can't take the results too seriously.

    Of course, it would be far more interesting to measure what percentage of Windows developers have switched to Linux development, than what percentage of Linux developers switched from Windows.

  • Development Tools Need Work? I don't think so . . (Score:4, Informative)

    by jmt9581 ( 554192 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:55PM (#5548521) Homepage
    I don't know why the E-week story says that "According to the survey, 25 percent of the respondents labeled the current crop of compilers as either 'adequate' or 'needs work'" and that "However, according to the survey, the developers also said that Linux development tools need work."

    If you look at the actual data [evansdata.com], it looks more like no more than 3.8% said that the compilers "need work." 90% rated the compilers as "adequate" or better, and 70% rated the compilers as "very good" or better.

    To me, it looks like they just drew a conclusion that they wanted to draw instead of actually looking at the data.

  • How many since Monday? (Score:4, Funny)

    by rubinson ( 207525 ) <rubinson @ e m a i l.arizona.edu> on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @07:57PM (#5548547) Homepage
    I assume that we're discussing developers who have switched since we last discussed [slashdot.org] this survey?

  • Linux, *bsd, etc (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @08:42PM (#5548928) Homepage
    Isn't Linux the posterchild OS for *nix arches?

    I think developers coming from a Unix background would probably look at *all* the choices with free *nixes .. and many would be more interested in developing towards more centrally planned OSes like the BSDs ...

    Linux gets a ton of media in the mainstream market where wintel developers work. The *BSDs dont get that kind of exposure, so those in the *nix know (ie, Unix developers) are going to look at all available free *nix flavours. I'd be willing to bet that Linux isn't as attractive to those whove been coding on Unix as those who've been coding on wintel.
  • I can't be specific about the tools and blah I tried but the experience has left a lasting impression; Slow, unhelpful and cumbersome.

    I plan to have another look in the very near future but I suspect I've been spoilt by MS Developer Studio and my Universal subscription ;-)

    What would be truly cool would be an integrated dev. toolset (like devstudio) that allowed me to develop software for both Linux and Windows - anyone know of such a tool, either free or commercial?

  • Yeah, but (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BortQ ( 468164 )
    This could probably be explained by the fact that there are far more windows developers out there. A small percent of them prolly add up to a big number.

  • Text editor (Score:2, Informative)

    by hayriye ( 609198 )
    If you switch from Windows to Linux, and found Unix style text editors hard to use, I recommend nedit [nedit.org]. It has copy-paste capabilities similiar to Windows based text editors.

    I don't have any relation with nediters. I'm just a happy user.

  • Well I develop for Linux and also for Windows, OSX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @11:04AM (#5555340) Homepage Journal
    etc.

    I started developing for 0.98 kernel using Slackware in '96 (i think) and was very impressed at the free product that was linux at that time.

    Now every time I download an ISO and install it (various distros) it amazes me how far linux has come. I'm running RH 7.3 currently but 8.0 looks cool (I'm one of three people that actually likes the unified desktop).

    '96: programming dot clocks to try to get XWindows to run on my video card, text install, boot disk req'd

    '03: cd based install, almost completely grandmafied (my word for grandma can use it), excellent 3rd Party Software (Oracle, Borland, StarOffice, ...)

    I kind of miss those InfoMagic CD sets for $15 that had redhat, debian, slackware, suse, and the several cd's of docs. Those were the days.
    • How is "grandmafied" a good thing? That just attracts every tech-inept social reject who for some reason doesn't like windows (like... its "cool" for him to use Linux now..) I WANT to program dot clocks. I want to know WHAT THE SYSTEM IS DOING WHEN I INSTALL. I want simplicity. Thus, I hate Suse, I hate RH. I love Slackware. Go Volkerding! Go!

  • How Timely (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bLanark ( 123342 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @03:53PM (#5558455)
    I got a call from Microsoft today, asking if I was going to renew my MSDN subscription.

    I told them I didn't do enought windows development to justify the cost anymore, which is true enough.

    I got the impression that the salesperson had ticked that box a few times recently...

  • I started out programming systems under DOS (DBase, TAS, etc.) and then later under Windows (C, C++, Delphi, Visual nasty Basic). I only started developing under Linux when I heard about it 3-4 years ago.

    Until then, I'd never heard of Linux. I knew about the existence of UNIX in general, but the small firms I worked for couldn't afford it and then when I worked for larger software houses, I was pigeon-holed into the Windows development area so got no exposure to UNIX. I just recall bigoted sysadmins compl

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