Transitioning From Windows to Linux Development?

truthsearch asks: "I've been a professional Visual Basic developer for 6 years, working on two and three tier systems and also web applications. Two years ago I tried Linux and went from being a fan of Windows to an aspiring developer of Linux (or at least Unix) applications. My company has just announced their complete acceptance of moving everyone to .NET and so I want to leave ASAP. I'm even willing to take a pay cut to leave Microsoft software development. So if I were to not contribute to OSS or take time off to get my masters (in CS of course), what's the best way to transition from professional Microsoft platform development to Linux? Are many companies hiring Microsoft developers with little Linux experience to assist in corporate migration? With online postings requiring 3-5 years Linux/C++/Java experience how's a Windows developer supposed to transition? Is my only solution to stick it out here while I contribute to OSS for the experience?"

Comments

*winces*

[CableModemSniper]

I've been a professional Visual Basic developer for 6 years, working on two and three tier systems and also web applications.

Man I feel sorry for you, their gonna have a field day with this one. b

Experience

[PFAK]

You answered your question yourself. Get experience with working OSS software, code some stuff. Submit some patches to either the FreeBSD or Linux kernel, and you should be set.

Just make sure that you keep up to date, even if you have to learn C# (.NET), it'll be still good on your resume. Heck, theres C# library's for UNIX now, if you have been reading slashdot.

And, I'd recommend keeping your current job, once you have sufficent knowledge. Then go looking for another one.

Same as elsewhere ... network network network...

[metacosm]

Questions:

#1. Do you want to work on OSS systems and with OSS toolkits (writing a web application in PHP running on Redhat 8.0 and Apache 2.0) or do you want to write OSS code (writing a web application licensed under [BSD | GPL]).
If your goal is to write software licensed under an open-source license, you will have a large uphill battle to find work.

#2. Are you sure your newfound passion is worth giving up your job over in this economy? Better to write windows code during the day, so you can afford to write linux code at night.
Slowly ebbing into linux is a good way to go, it will let you built up an understanding and ensure you are set on this decision.

Recommendations:

If you really want to break into the OSS software development market, you need to bear in mind a few things.

#1. It is like any other market, your network of personal relationships you have developed over the past six years will be your basis, where you start looking. As always the buddy-network is the best possible way to find a job you might actually enjoy.

#2. OSS is often as much about community as software, get involved. The best place to probably get involved is your local LUG. At you LUG you have a chance to meet like minded individuals.

#3. Write some code that has your name on it, so that when asked to produce demos/examples of your work you can show them your (GPL | BSD) licensed code. If you write software that happens to help your local LUG you get a bonus point.

#4. Remember that you might be able to create a new job, rather than fill an existing opening. Converting a company to linux, and developing new systems is a large task for even a small (100-200 employees) business. But a rewarding one.

IMHO, there's no competition

[SAN1701]

With Borland Delphi/Kylix, you can

Create any kind of multiplatform (windows/linux) apps.

Use a WAY better RAD tool than VB (I used VB for a while).

Learn and use a full-featured OO language.

As a bonus, you can even generate .NET applications, if you need.

I use it since its first version (well, since Turbo Pascal 3.0, actually), and, altough it's not the tool I use most in daily job (I deal with Macs a lot), it's simply the best RAD tool I've seen. Try a free download. After all, you're the kind of guy they're targeting now.

Re:IMHO, there's no competition

[zulux]

The best thing about Delphi/Kylix is that you can dabble in Linux, and still use it to pay the bills.

Aside, Kylix programs work wonderfully in FreeBSD with FreeBSD's Linux compatibility layer.

Re:IMHO, there's no competition

[zulux]

Its clients, inside the company, uses a Windows front-end writen in Delphi; To the web, we simply recompiled the data abstraction layer and created some small formating code and we had a full-featured apache-linux webserver app, with little effort.

Fun stuff...

The nastiest trick I've done with Deplhi/Kylix is that I was tired of buggy Windows workstations making my app look bad, so I put the front-end of the app on a FreeBSD server and shared the app with VNC. So any computer that has a VNC viewer: Apple, Windows, Be - you name it, can use the app. And if the workstations crashes, the app is waiting them where they left off.

I too would love for native Mac support.

Re:IMHO, there's no competition

[Trane Francks]

I agree that Delphi and Kylix are the way to go. Also, what hasn't been mentioned yet is that the language itself is relatively painless to learn for VB programmers. This should make it possible for our intrepid VB programmer to pick up the basics and move on before the .Net move at his current company becomes a serious problem.

Any VB programmer who worked with version 4 will crack open Delphi and Kylix and think, "Wow, I've seen this before!" It's a very comfortable transition.

I use all three.

trane

NOW you're leaving?

[uradu]

> moving everyone to .NET and so I want to leave ASAP

So you stuck it out with crappy VB6 all these years for the sheer enjoyment of it, and now that they're finally moving to a half-way decent platform, you're bailing?

MONO

[MrBlack]

Just because your employer is moving to .NET doesn't mean you can't do some development on Linux using MONO. It seems ironic to me that in may ways .NET un-shackles windows developers from the windows platform more than previous Microsoft development technologies did.

Also, why not try and affect change from within your own company, rather than going somewhere else? If there is an existing open equivalent to something you're thinking of using then make the case for that. Also investigate languages like Java, Python and Perl which can run on multiple platforms. They all have large developer communities and mature libraries for doing lots of different things.

Re:MONO

[alyandon]

.NET unshackles developers from MS Windows as long as they stick to the features that can be implemented on other platforms.

One thing you are probably never going to see with Mono, DotGnu(sp?), et al. is a compatible implementation of COM+ which MS has thrown into .NET for talking to legacy win32 components/libraries/applications. If you need to use such features with .NET -- you are going to be developing and deploying on Windows (at least the service part will need to be).

Re:MONO

[MrBlack]

AFAIK COM+ AKA enterprise services aren't so much about interop with COM, but more about providing "enterprise services" like queing, transactional objects etc (more analogous to certain parts of J2EE). .NET interoperates with COM by way of a COM callable wrapper. In order for a .NET assembly to interoperate with a COM component (under normal circumstances, forgetting about remoting and DCOM for the minute) the COM component would have to be installed and run on the host OS. So I guess you could say we would probably see .NET/COM interop in MONO when we see COM for Linux (hey, isn't that what BONOBO is...).

Side note: I heard the marketroids at M$ were thinking about calling .NET COM+ 2, now wouldn't _THAT_ have been a good name.

.Net

[the eric conspiracy]

It would seem to me that sticking out the transition to .Net and working on Linux on the side would be the best way to make the transition.

With .Net, your VB skills are soon going to be hard to market, and you don't have any real Linux skills just yet.

If you stick it out, you will have a much better skillset to show the market.

.NET

[droyad]

Why run from .NET? Pretty soon* you can develop in .NET for the linux plaform

*I am aware that it is already working, but it's not quite there yet

Find a place that does Unix Development

[PaddyM]

I'm not sure how you'd do that other than ask. I work for Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management. We do unix development, and in fact as part of a leadership development program, I'm currently working on porting a Windows-based testing app to cross-platform (read: Java GUI and ANSI C backends on Linux). I'm not sure how much we're hiring, but it certainly isn't obvious from the job description (Software Engineering) that you could end up doing development in linux.

there is competition

[e8johan]

Qt from trolltech (www.trolltech.com) is a better solution (IMHO).

• Qt uses C++ (but is available for other languages). C++ is far more common than Borland's Pascal derivate that Delphi/Kylix uses.
• QtDesigned is a great RAD tool, but it does not force you to use it. You can write (or insert) lots of code from the outside without any problems.
• For cross platform apps, simply buy the full version and you can do Unix/X11, Win32 and MaxOS X with one source.
• Qt is not only a GUI tool, but a collection of cross platform classes for: sockets, filesystem interaction, database access and much more.

If you feel like trying it, just go to trolltech and download the free edition.

Re:there is competition

[oliverthered]

Hmm.. I don't think you've tried Borland tools for quite some time.

Kylix gives you:
Just-in-time compiling so you can modify your code whilst debugging.

A far better syntax for even-handeling.

A seriously good RAD UI. you havn't seen rad till you've used Kylix/CBuilder &co.

Type sensitive code compleation.

Good ANSI compliance.

Cross platform development (including mobile devices)

the list goes on.....

I do like QT and I use it a lot but Borlands tools are the best.

Professional Programmer

[JohnFluxx]

A serious question: How can someone really consider themselves a professional programmer - particular one that's been coding for 6 years - but has stuck to one language and one OS.

I'm not trolling, just thinking from an employers point of view. Wouldn't you be suspicious of someone who doesn't branch out a little more? I personally would wonder where there motivation and proffesional curiosity is.. Or do employers like that sort of thing?

Re:Professional Programmer

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

A serious question: How can someone really consider themselves a professional programmer - particular one that's been coding for 6 years - but has stuck to one language and one OS.

That depends on your point of view, I guess.

I've been a full-time professional developer for around four years, and I've used predominantly C++ on MS Windows in that time. Sure, I've also used C and assembler skills in significant amounts along the way, I've picked up enough of things like Java and Perl to be useful, and I have a side interest in several other tools and languages as well. The current project I'm working on runs on about 15 different platforms, too.

I'd still probably describe myself as a C++ programmer who works with Windows as a one-line summary, though.

Keep your day job

[DrCode]

I've been professionally writing Unix/Linux code for over 10 years, and also have written a lot of OSS. And I've been unemployed for nearly 4 months. That experience doesn't seem to be doing me much good at the moment.

It seems like the main jobs I see now are either for Window programmers (esp. .NET), or for Java with database experience. So stay where you are so you can get the .NET experience, and join an open-source project for fun. You'll have the best of both worlds (and believe me, ANY tech. job is better than no job).

Re:Two/Three tier systems?

[Wavicle]

The number of "tiers" refers to the number of players (apps) between a client application and the data or service it wants. A two tier system is almost always called "client-server", because those are the only two players involved. In the trade if the client is a custom app and the server is a database, this arrangement is usually referred to as "thick client".

A site like slashdot is probably 3 tier because data travels client-server-db. The obvious reason to do 3 tier is the web. Web browsers shouldn't have to support running code to do complex SQL queries to some database. However there are a host of other reasons to separate database access from the client like security or connection pooling. You don't really want your db to suffer 100,000 simultaneous accesses, much better to put in a middle tier that maintains a queue of those wanting access and a pool of open connections to execute the queries. This set up where the middle tier does the db access on the client's behalf is usually called "thin client".

Besides the whole web browser model, other 3-tier (or n-tier as we like to call them, although n is rarely greater than 4) technologies in common use (or at least that I've used) are CORBA (cross platform and language standard) and EJB (Java standard).

Advices given here are absolutely horrible

[Alex Belits]

You can't learn new system, especially a superior one, by using tools that are from your old system -- even if they are developed recently. To learn Unix you need to study its design, tools and techniques, not use some monstrosity made to support applications made for Windows under Unix. So forget about Mono, Winelib and Java, learn C (plain C, by K&R book), networking (by UNP book), write something, participate in the development of something that you need, and then you will be able to choose what to do next.