Survey: Linux Draws Windows Developers

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."

Comments

Not scientific

[ClosedSource]

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 . .

[jmt9581]

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, 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?

[rubinson]

I assume that we're discussing developers who have switched since we last discussed this survey?

Linux, *bsd, etc

[SirSlud]

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.

Re:I didn't like Linux dev stuff when I tried it.

[mvdw]

What would be truly cool would be an integrated dev. toolset (like devstudio) that allowed me to develop software for both Linux and Windows

Try Borland's C++ Builder/Delphi (Windows) and Kylix (linux) products.

Well I develop for Linux and also for Windows, OSX

[BoomerSooner]

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 Timely

[bLanark]

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...