Lpc2000

John,

I speak for myself here, not for Clyde.

> 	I'm more curious why companies target the Windows 
> market so heavily.  I've been a Windows user for years.
> I never liked IDEs, as most IDEs made me use thier editor
> instead of my editor (yours may be different, but thing like 
> CodeVision were exceptionally annoying in that regard).  I 
> use ImageCrafts AVR C compiler, and I prefer it because
> it's command line invokable.

Many compilation systems have command line tools so they can be used
with make.  ImageCraft, Hi-Tech, RAL, we all understand that some users
just don't like IDEs and want the compiler, not the IDE.

> 	I would think that considering the cost of a company 
> installing a Linux system (cost of hardware + cost of a
> slightly less then brain-dead IT person) vs. the cost of
> a Windows seat (cost of hardware + cost of brain-dead IT 
> person with $5000 MS certs + cost of license), that most 
> companies would choose to use Linux, especially if the
> programmer supports his own machine (very common in
> development environments).

Actually, I choose to use Windows for good reason.  I have more choice
in application packages on Windows than on Linux.  And from a
development perspective, Windows with Visual C++ V6 is much more
productive than GCC on Linux because the Visual C++ compiler is so much
faster than GCC.  I can rebuild the whole of our IDE in under five
minutes on my machine, but on Linux it's an hour-long compile.  What
would you use?

> 	Linux gives you windowing, it gives you a *real* 
> command line development environment (4DOS and Cygwin
> get close, but not close enough), and it gives 
> the average user far more stability.

I've got the Interix subsystem on XP.  It's pretty good.  I also run
XWin-32, a paid-for X server for Windows.

> 	My personal feeling is that the majority of companies 
> that only develop for 
> Windows do so for one major reason: Copy protection.

This is where I need to *strongly* disagree.  I develop for Windows
because that's what the customers want and where the market is.  Of all
the licenses we've sold, only two customers have inquired about Linux
versions of our tools and both are using Windows versions of our tools
right now.  The market isn't there.  If it was, you'd see Linux versions
of everything, I can assure you.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
CrossWorks for MSP430 and ARM processors