[mrweasel]

Microsoft SQL Server and tooling (SQL Management Studio) is actually very nice to work with. Agreeably there's not much you can do with SQL Server that you can't do with Postgresql, but perhaps you're already a Microsoft shop, and then SQL Server simply fit in better with your deployment, backup and administration software.

In regards to documentation: Microsoft have very good documentation for developers. The SQL Server documentation is at least AS good as the Postgresql documentation, if not better.

It's really weird to approach Microsoft from the developer side, because they have absolutely wonderful products like Visual Studio, C#, Exchange, Active Directory, and SQL Server, but at the same time they have Windows. I feel that Windows, at least the desktop version, is somehow a second tier product, where the quality isn't on par with their other products.

[deviate_X]

I hate (for fear of the backlash) to ask but what is the problem with Windows me and my colleagues frequently run it for weeks non-stop on desktop. On the server-side it just runs without any issues like any other os..? i see comments like this and genuinely wonder ...

[mrweasel]

I haven't used it much on the server side, so I won't comment on that part.

Printer drivers can still crash Windows, and if you screw them up, you can be force to just reinstall. Javascript in Firefox managed to crash a display driver earlier to day. Still Windows is "okay", in terms of stability, but if something goes wrong, like yesterday when my wireless NIC stopped working, there's absolutely no help from Windows in terms of figuring out why. Logging is pretty much non-existent, it's like arguing with a wacko girlfriend who's mad at you, but won't tell you why.

Really the interface is the major pain point for me. It simply feels clunky and slow. There's a serious lack of consistency across the UI. Windows 10 is really bad about this, having two control panels for instance, and still being part metro, part Windows XP. Just the whole filesystem layout of the C:\Users\<username> is weird. It's as if Windows have gone to create lengths to hide the "home folder", for no apparent reason. Generally the filesystem is just weird and confusing. Search rarely work. The "Ubuntu on Windows" does fix some of my issues though, because having a modern operating system, and no "Unix layer" is a hindrance, to me at least.

If there's a point to my rambling it's something along the line that Windows is missing an overall strategy. Currently it sits in a weird spot between being for the absolute novice, and the computer expert, while fulfilling neither role.

[recursive]

> Just the whole filesystem layout of the C:\Users\<username> is weird. It's as if Windows have gone to create lengths to hide the "home folder", for no apparent reason.

I don't understand this. It seems less hidden than C:\Documents And Settings\<username>. In fact, it seems fairly prominent to me. Where could they put it that would be less hidden?

[Crespyl]

As a developer, using Windows for anything that isn't Visual Studio related can be kind of painful compared to Unix-family systems, especially in the open source world.

Getting a decent command line, until very recently, required awkward work-arounds like Cygwin, and a lot of common dev tools tend to feel like second-class citizens. Package/dependency management just wasn't there, though I hear they're starting to fix this.

[GrumpyYoungMan]

Aside from having to reboot to apply some patches and the cost, Windows Server runs fine as a server if you're running an all or mostly MS stack. TBH, some things about Windows Server I like considerably more (e.g. performance counters, the event logging system, PowerShell) than the equivalents on Linux.

[arethuza]

"SQL Server that you can't do with Postgresql"

I'm not sure that's really a great comparison (and I really like PostgreSQL) - SQL Server is really a family of products that all depend on the database server component of SQL Server (SSAS, SSIS, SSRS) and that comes with easy integration with lots of applications from Microsoft (e.g. the Dynamics CRM and ERP products) as well as hundreds of 3rd party products.

[ZanyProgrammer]

Alas its a prereq for those items you listed as being wonderful. Cross platform VS can't happen soon enough.