Could Python supplant Java?

[goose]

Dan Johnson wrote:
<snip>
> Serious question:
> 
> What is so developer-hostile about Windows?
> 

Serious Answer(tm):
1. No development tools come installed with it. Without
even a single compiler, how does a "developer" develop ?
The result is usually to download/purchase a development
tool.

2. No proper scripting environment to do nightly
build & test cycles (cron'd to run at midnight).
(IDE's are nice if you're gonna sit at your desk and click
on the buttons, but on a 20 person project, I want to be
able to get everyone to save their work to a server, and
have *everything* recompiled from scratch, so that if
anyone made a change that broke someone else component, we'd
find out the next morning, not six weeks later when we are
trying to integrate our code together). The lack of a system
provided make utility is depressing.

3. The inability to easily let everyone use *the* *same* *machine*
to compile, all at the same time (via an ssh shell, or an xterm
if the developer likes GUI IDE's). This way it is possible to make
sure that no developer is using a compiler which could possibly
be patched to a different version than the others (autoupdate?).

4. The lack of a single decent editor ... 'nuff said.

Basicly, after you jump the flaming hoops to install your OS,
it is frustrating to sit in front of it without being able to
write a single line of code because the OS assumes that the
person using it is not a developer. No other system that I've
installed has this "feature" ... the first thing I do after an
installation is run 'cc -v' ... and everthing from linux to
sco to solaris to iris allows me to start writing code.

Windows lets me play solitaire :-(


> Are you sure it isn't really Microsoft you find.. hostile? :D

no, I can stand solitaire for a few minutes while my
development tools load :-)



-- 
goose
ruse at webmail dot co dot za