Re:I was interviewed by Fog Creek
by outworlder on Thursday April 16, 2015 @10:16AM
(#9388046)
I have the same prejudice - and yes, I'll freely admit it is a prejudice.
But it is also based on observation. "Windows-only" developers tend to be too narrow-minded and many will have never heard of a lot of stuff that I take for granted. Stuff like Vagrant, Docker, Puppet, even a 'grep'. You get a blank stare whenever something that's not from Microsoft gets mentioned.
Given the difficulty that it is to install a lot of things under Windows, that's understandable. The other day I was having trouble installing Jupyter (formely iPython), which is trivial to install on Linux or OSX. Managed to, but only because I am stubborn. Firing a VM would have taken less time.
Not everyone is like that of course. You'll see that Notch uses Windows, even if he develops with Java and Eclipse. But he develops games (or used to anyway) and Windows is hard to beat in this case.
If I hear that the guy actually prefers Windows, during a job interview, you can be sure that I'll ask a whole bunch of additional questions to see how aware of the outside world the guy is. I could be turning down Notch, or Jeff Atwood.
So far, I don't think I have.
[edit: just noticed that I've used 'guy' here a lot, my mistake. Please replace by whatever genderless word feels more appropriate.]
But it is also based on observation. "Windows-only" developers tend to be too narrow-minded and many will have never heard of a lot of stuff that I take for granted. Stuff like Vagrant, Docker, Puppet, even a 'grep'. You get a blank stare whenever something that's not from Microsoft gets mentioned.
Given the difficulty that it is to install a lot of things under Windows, that's understandable. The other day I was having trouble installing Jupyter (formely iPython), which is trivial to install on Linux or OSX. Managed to, but only because I am stubborn. Firing a VM would have taken less time.
Not everyone is like that of course. You'll see that Notch uses Windows, even if he develops with Java and Eclipse. But he develops games (or used to anyway) and Windows is hard to beat in this case.
If I hear that the guy actually prefers Windows, during a job interview, you can be sure that I'll ask a whole bunch of additional questions to see how aware of the outside world the guy is. I could be turning down Notch, or Jeff Atwood.
So far, I don't think I have.
[edit: just noticed that I've used 'guy' here a lot, my mistake. Please replace by whatever genderless word feels more appropriate.]