Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by jupp0r on Friday August 05, 2022 @12:36PM (#32358498)

You are missing an important point: engineers want to use the tools that work best for them. They don’t care much about the things they can’t see. Taking a job with a super restrictive IT environment that would prevent me from doing my job effectively would be a deterrent to work for that company. I know many people who feel similar to this. The opportunity cost of not being able to hire those people or giving them other incentives to alleviate those concerns is easily orders of magnitude more expensive than just buying a device management as a service solution for other OSes.

I’ve rarely seen people being very enthusiastic Windows users btw.

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by BlargMcLarg on Friday August 05, 2022 @12:48PM (#32358669)

I've rarely seen individuals be very happy with Linux / Unix outside a few very dedicated, stereotypical hacker-types. Safe to say anecdotes don't work.

I'd also think twice about the consequences of these decisions. If Gitlab and co decide Linux/Mac is the answer for market share, it's only a matter of time before hackers start targeting those platforms en masse. If the answer to Windows was restriction galore, I fail to see how humans won't repeat history and do the same to Unix.

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by nikau on Saturday August 06, 2022 @01:09AM (#32364999)

Seems like its a pretty good filter to me, anyone not adaptable to a different operating system is probably not a great fit for a company like gitlab.

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by jeffwask on Friday August 05, 2022 @02:53PM (#32360331)

Tell me you haven't used Windows in a decade without telling me you haven't used Windows in a decade

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by jupp0r on Friday August 05, 2022 @04:56PM (#32361890)

Until 4 months ago, I was leading a team responsible for a cross platform desktop app with 20 million daily users, most of them on Windows. I used Windows daily and found/reported numerous bugs to Microsoft. I would never have made it my primary development environment, but I had some people on my team who liked it for that.

I think your uninformed ad hominem attacks are really impolite by the way.

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by jeffwask on Monday August 08, 2022 @09:41AM (#32385241)

Speaking of ad hominim's I am confused. Have you "I’ve rarely seen people being very enthusiastic Windows users btw" or "had some people on my team who liked it for that."

From my perspective Windows in 2022...

- I can seamlessly develop in Linux on Windows using WSL2 - I can manage my machine with a package manager (winget) - I can run Linux Native GUI application (wslg win 11) - I get Microsoft's epic backwards compatability - I get guaranteed comparability with 99% of the software and hardware available today - I get a suite of expandable back office tools for managing my fleet

Honestly, there are days I spending in visual studio code and windows terminal where it doesn't even feel like I'm on Windows. I can get the best of both environments out of the box.

...but tell me again how there is nothing to be enthusiastic about windows.

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Re:Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab by jupp0r on Monday August 08, 2022 @03:49PM (#32390187)

Obviously there's a spectrum and my personal experience is not representative for the industry as a whole. From the people I've worked with in 2 decades, maybe 2% choose Windows over Unix when given the choice, even when most customers were using Windows. At my current job, I literally know nobody using Windows (>$1B software company with high 3 digit or low 4 digit number of engineers). Not sure why anybody thinks a Windows only policy would be a great idea in this labor market.

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