[LionEgo]

The reason why WSL is a thing is because developers in corps needed a way to run Linux. IT support and techs doesn't know anything about Linux typically and don't want to deal with supporting it. WSL fixes this problem.

Most developers don't want to use Linux at all. Many developers don't even really know how to user a terminal and rely on GUI tools.

[masfoobar]

> Most developers don't want to use Linux at all. Many developers don't even really know how to user a terminal and rely on GUI tools.

First of all, I disagree with this comment.

However, lets assume you are right.. that the average "Windows Developer" has little to zero skills in GNU/Linux.

If that is the case, it proves my point EVEN MORE that Micrsofot missed out creating a Microsoft Linux Distro... designed to have Powershell, Visual Studio Code, Edit, and potentially Edge, SQL Server, etc.

It would still be Linux but keeping to what they know in Windows -- and would have given Microsoft more power in the linux world.

[LionEgo]

> First of all, I disagree with this comment.

You can disagree all you want. It is simply the truth. I've contracted in the UK and Europe. Most devs don't even know you can tab complete most commands in modern shells (IIRC cmd.exe supports this). This is both Microsoft Shops and shops that use opensource stacks e.g. LAMP and similar.

I was in a large company in the NW and I knew two developers in a team of 30 that knew basic bash and vim.

There is a reason why "how I exit from vim" is a meme. Most people have no idea how to do it.

> If that is the case, it proves my point EVEN MORE that Micrsofot missed out creating a Microsoft Linux Distro... designed to have Powershell, Visual Studio Code, Edit, and potentially Edge, SQL Server, etc.

Respectfully you seem to have never worked with the people I describe. You listed PowerShell as if they would use it. A former colleague of mine was quizzed why he would use PowerShell to write a script that would run on a Windows Server. They had expected him to write a C# program.

[masfoobar]

> I was in a large company in the NW and I knew two developers in a team of 30 that knew basic bash and vim.

I have worked for various companies as well, UK, Netherlands, etc. Yes, from my experience, working for jobs in a Windows environment (Windows development) will have less knowledge of bash or linux in general if they simply are not using it. These are developers using Windows, SQL Server, .NET, and other Microsoft-focused products.

I would agree that Windows developers have less skills with a shell, even CMD.. or much less Powershell. However, if we are going to FOCUS on this userbase, they are likely to be accepting to using a WSL Linux distro created by Microsoft bundled with powershell, .net, etc.. than to use Ubuntu with bash, vim/nano or variants.

Also, I have worked for Companies that focused on LAMP development and their linux skills were decent to pro. The only time someone would struggle is likely because their are junior level.. and coming from a Windows background.

> Respectfully you seem to have never worked with the people I describe. You listed PowerShell as if they would use it. A former colleague of mine was quizzed why he would use PowerShell to write a script that would run on a Windows Server. They had expected him to write a C# program.

Powershell... C#... both of which are Microsoft. Powershell is .NET under the hood. Doesn't change my comment.

[8-prime]

> Most developers don't want to use Linux at all. I don't know if this is necessarily true. Many of the develops I know prefer GUI applications to cli tooling, which I can get behind. That has nothing to do with Linux vs Windows though. But my struggles with Windows are plentiful and the same goes for all my colleagues. I have a hard time believing that we are the outliers and not the rule.

[philistine]

> Most developers don't want to use Linux at all.

(looks at the install numbers for Linux vs Windows in the server space) I'm not so sure.

[LionEgo]

We are the outliers. My co-workers hasn't even removed the awful Windows weather app and search bar from the taskbar.

[lpcvoid]

Sorry for the snarky comment, but then those devs are simply bad. Windows is legacy, the future is in open source.

[LionEgo]

> Sorry for the snarky comment, but then those devs are simply bad

Yes. That is the majority of developers. I had to explain to a dev today (nice enough guy) that he has to actually run the tests.

> Windows is legacy, the future is in open source.

You can claim the future is opensource but the industry has moved towards SAAS, PAAS, IAAS which is even more lock in than using a proprietary OS such as Windows.

So while you might have an opensource OS, many of the programs you use will be proprietary in the worst way possible.

[dang]

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

[trelane]

> Many developers don't even really know how to user a terminal and rely on GUI tools.

Fortunately, Linux users can also avail themselves of a graphical interface as well.

[LionEgo]

Your snark at my comments is completely unwarranted.

I really shouldn't have to explain what follows. But I will.

Installing any dev tooling that is third party is done on the command line. Look up the instructions for installing Node LTS on Debian, or .NET, or Golang. You need to use the command line. Even on easier to use Distros they have the same procedure. Depending on the tooling you may need to set additional environment variables which are normally done in your .bashrc or similar.

What normally happens is people blindly copy and paste things into the terminal and don't read the documentation. This has been a problem on Linux since before Ubuntu was released. This isn't just limited to newbies either.

The state of GUIs BTW isn't great. Many of them look nice, and work reasonably well most of the time, *until they don't* e.g. If I double click a deb to install it, sometimes it will install. Other times it won't. So I don't even bother anymore and just use dpkg/apt. BTW it isn't any better with other distros. So I have to drop to the command line to fix the issue anyway.

So at some point you will need to learn bash, learn to read the man pages, and manually edit configuration file. It is unavoidable on Linux.