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Windows Loses Ground With Developers
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jul 03, 2007 01:41 PM
from the rising-tide-lifts-all-penguins dept.
from the rising-tide-lifts-all-penguins dept.
An anonymous reader notes that InfoWorld is covering a survey of North American developers that claims that Linux is gaining share as the number of developers targeting Windows fell 11 percent over the last year. Evans Data has been conducting these surveys of client, server, and Web developers since 1998. Evans Data says that the arrival of Windows Vista likely only kept the numbers from being even worse. The big gainer wasn't developing for a Web platform, but rather for Linux and "nontraditional client devices." Windows is still dominant, with 65% of developers writing code for this platform. Linux stands at almost 12%, up from 8% a year earlier. The article says that Evans Data collected information on Mac and Unix development but did not include them in this year's report.
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Ob.. (Score:5, Funny)
ObSweatTardLink: Developer Music Video [developersdevelopers.com]
Awesome.
Re:Ob.. (Score:4, Funny)
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DEVELOPERS!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ob.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I love the Mac interface, but the thing I always loved about Windows was that it forced me to look more closely at what was going on than I may have wanted to. And that exploration of the nuts and bolts of an overcomplicated desktop OS gave me insights that I may never have gained had I stuck with the more opaque Mac OS. Of course, for those who want that experience today, Linux has it in spades. But as much as I loathe Vista and the company that has trumpeted this abomination on us, I'm glad that I had to learn about a "registry" and I'm glad I had to learn about shared libraries and memory management.
As much as I'm sure that the devices that will contain embedded processors will provide us with utility and convenience, pleasure and all varieties of entertainment, I hope that the idea of an all-purpose, configurable, expandable box with a keyboard and operating system doesn't go away any time soon. And I hope that developers continue to create tools for us to use on those boxes.
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Re:Ob.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see what you mean, and I agree. A computer should be programmable by its users.
One correction though: it wasn't the PC that turned kids into programmers. It was (a) Unix systems at universities and (b) the cheap home computers of the 1980s, with a BASIC interpreter and a demo scene, like the Commodore 64.
Parent
Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't do server apps, and we considered linux quite seriously.
We have abandoned windows as a development platform, but it wasn't linux that replaced it, it was OSX. Linux's lack of a standard GUI layer in the OS - modern menus, buttons, lists, even windows - is the primary issue for us. There are lots of things that are very attractive about linux, not the least of which is a large user base that we think would have an interest in some of the things we can offer, and so we do keep an eye on what is going on. But there is a long history of independent widget development projects with quite a range of capabilities, licenses and corresponding legal issues, and in some cases, prices for commercial use; there's no certainty there will ever be a standard graphics layer. In my opinion, which is only one fellow's outlook (though I do control my company's direction) this is a key factor.
Both Microsoft and Apple have some pretty nice interface builders; that'd be a factor too, presuming that the embedded graphics eventually gets past xwindows and user-land layers on top of it. And by the way, I'm not advocating any of that be dropped; just that a standard be added to the OS that anyone can use in any way without any issues, just as one can use the fopen() call and know it'll be there and neither legal nor accounting will have to be called because the call was used.
Parent
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Interesting)
You can use GTK instead if you like. Or if you want something that works in anything, but looks different every version, you can always use WX.
Add in a platform independant language like Python if your application is not extremely intensive (and sometimes, even then), and you have an extremely nice setup for anyone to use.
And QT has a very modern (and more importantly, customisable) look. It comes with a little app, and you [the user], can set GUI appearances that the developer left as default, to look like Windows, MacOS 9, MacOS X, and QTs native, amongst others. It also pulls the system default colors for various field types, which is extremely nice.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So, GTK is the only viable alternative (and guess what, most commercial Linux apps use GTK).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And, depending on what you are doing and how you are releasing it, you may still be able to use the Free version.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
thats all well and good but when you want to use QStrings everywhere in your application (because they work well, support translation nicely and are compatible with your UI) all of a sudden everyone needs a license or you have to have some kind of compatibility layer so that your back end doesn't need QStrings.
Its doable, but its not trivial.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, I was wrong with the price. It's $6600 per developer for three-platform desktop edition - http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pricing [trolltech.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It only costs if you charge for your software.
Frankly the price starts out at 6600 for Mac, Windows, and Linux for the first developer I think. Not all that expensive for a such a great tool.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could have at least picked GTK and had Windows and Linux compatibility. Seems like you guys threw out the baby with the bathwater. Your OSX widget library cost $0, but how much does each development-grade Mac cost? Or are you doing all your work on Mac mini's?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The people at PC-BSD thought the same thing. So PC-BSD specific software was GPLed since they used QT.
It's now BSD also, for the same reason that you are incorrect. Namely - you can use QT without having to GPL your stuff.
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Interesting)
You can have your code under BSD license, because it's less restricting than GPL. But if anyone tries to use your application as a part of a commercial closed-source project, then they will be violating _GPL_ license of QT. Which, sort of, defeats the whole purpose of BSD license...
You can have QT in BSDs without GPLing the whole thing because of the 'aggregation' clause in GPL.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think this is what you want: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.2/desktop-systray.html
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't be. The solution is really simple
Qt if you are going to GPL your code and want to code in C++
Qt if you don't want to GPL your code and code in C++ just pay Trolltech for the none free version.
GTK if you want to code in C or C# GPL or not since you can use it under LGPL.
GNUStep if you really want to use Objective C and don't mind being different.
I mix Qt and GTK apps at will on my Linux desktop. For many applications your choice between GTK and QT really doesn't matter. Okay I hate GTKs file dialog Qts is a lot better IMHO but even that isn't a really big issue. I use Eclipse CDT which uses SWT-GTK for it's interface on Suse 10.1 running KDE. No big problem.
The lack of a standard windowing tool kit just isn't a big deal. Frankly I suggest just going with QT and then you can make your code run on Windows, Mac and Linux with very little effort at least as far as the UI goes.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, it really isn't. LGPL [gnu.org] is the only general solution right now for a typical commercial application, and it presents problems with IP; specifically, section 4d, which boils down to providing code for the user to recompile that links to the LGPL'd libraries (not likely with most commercial IP models), or depending on the fact that the user has the library on their system already, which you can't do, because if they don't, your app, and therefore your whole commercial premi
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry, what? This isn't 1995 anymore where Motif and libXaw were the main GUI toolkits. gtk+, pygtk, gtk#, SWT, etc. are shipped in every distribution containing all the common widgets and are free to use. Maybe you mean your visual-studio developers can't use anything else? Well have fun in hell with that snowball waiting for MS to port the apps. you've locked yourself into.
Parent
Re:Client vs. Server Applications (Score:5, Insightful)
X-windows together with any of the popular graphical toolkits is every bit as fast as windows GDI primitives, and very similar to what apple's DPS does to draw widgets. The old fashioned integration of graphical primitives directly into the operating system is exactly what everyone is trying to get away from, as it tends to make everything suck. Take one look at beryl and youll see the future of eye candy is going to be coming from the free software camp.
Now, in addition to that, you are taking the licensing issue 100% backwards. With any OSS toolkit, the terms and source are 100% disclosed, and many times simpler than proprietary licenses. The toolkit you choose will be around forever as surely as if you own it yourself. I don't suppose you have ever read one of MS or Apple's EULA's, but to sum them up you are essentially placing yourself and your company at their mercy when you develop for their platforms.
If your reason for choosing proprietary products is because you plan to make proprietary products, that at least would make sense. But keep in mind that the product model for software is receding into history, and you may need a change of business model in the forseeable future.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then there's the other side. We use a lot of scientific and engineering software that will only run on proprietary Unix systems. Recently, the developers of one of those programs decided to try and port their 64-bit Unix version
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know anything about your app, but you might be able to get a *NIX port almost for free. GNUstep runs on Windows too, but the Win32 back end is still a bit... interesting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, TFA data goes against my personal experience.
Almost everyone I know is now experimenting with Linux, with slow adopters and doubters being prodded
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know of any Windows developers who have abandoned Windows development altogether.
We did.
At least, in the sense that we're now targetting Python + wxWidgets (and soon QT4) for pretty much all new development. Most of our programmers still use Windows as their desktop OS, but all of our new software is testing to work at least on Windows and Linux (and FreeBSD for server stuff, and OS X if we're bored).
Honestly, we've had enough of vendor lock-in. Sure, our programs still need to be able to run on Windows but that's only part of the requirements now. Given that we've already roll
Perhaps Its just gotten easier.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows has some of the best tools out there - software as a whole has matured to a level that there hasn't been anything "new" and its been mostly upgrades. No wonder the market has shifted. Just because there are more developers in other environments, doesn't mean the market has dried up, just that it has matured.
Linux is not another Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux will never replace Windows, because nothing else ever will. Windows is an artifact of a time when having a single platform was more important for development than having the best platform. Now that the industry is maturing, the needs are rapidly becoming commodities behind standards-based interfaces (TCP, XML, etc) while the platform itself is becoming less and less relevant. The Internet met a need that Microsoft simply couldn't provide, and now the cat is out of the bag. Vista is Microsoft's attempt to lock users in before erosion gets too bad, and it's pretty evident how well that's going.
Windows' market share will slowly erode, slowly being beaten by an increasing number of products, services, and wares on an increasing number of platforms.
Go standards!
Re:Linux is not another Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
We are far more productive just sticking to one set of code for one platform, because there are no good languages out there that work for any platform.
Excuse me for being naive, but why not Java? Its not like Java carries any performance penalty as compared to C# - both are JIT compiled languages that are run by a VM. Java has excellent developer tools as well: both Eclipse and Netbeans have matured as IDEs.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When writing Java in IDEA 5 years ago, it had all the fanc
Re:Linux is not another Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding? I've seen businesses that were still running pentium 1 systems in 2000 and 2001.
Not everyone replaces all of their equipment every couple of years. For instance, the laptop I'm writing this on was bought in 2003. With a 2.4ghz processor and a decent amount of ram, it still performs quite well even when I'm doing development.
As for the people who just use a computer for email and surfing, most of them don't have to get a new machine until the one they're using dies.
It's a budget thing, and most people simply have better things to spend their money on than a new computer every other year.
Parent
Linux is a better target for new developers. (Score:5, Insightful)
.net anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
This mess is drawing Microsoft's attention away from the C/C++ layer, where it's sorely needed, and into what, as far as I'm concerned, is comparable to Visual Basic. Put simply, neither my employer nor I are interested in writing in a proprietary, bytecode-interpreted language. If we have to abandon our C/C++ investment, it certainly wont be for a proprietary java knockoff. It will be for the real thing, allowing us to slowly drift away from Windows.
Developing for Linux is just easier. (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, the entire POSIX spec, suitable for fully implementing a POSIX system including the utility apps, with commentary and rationales for design decisions, fits in about two and a half feet of binders.
Intellisense is practically mandated if you want to work with an interface as baroque as Win32. And it's nice even when you're working with your own defined classes and structures. But it has its own drawbacks, as Petzold notes:
I develop for many platforms at work. It's a core part of my job. I mostly enjoy writing code for Unixish platforms, and tolerate the Windows stuff. The APIs on Unix are small, well-thought-out, have few if any side effects, and tend to be thoroughly documented. I find very few interfaces on Windows have even a majority of these traits, let alone all of them.
I've rarely felt the need for more debugging support than Linux comes with. The problems tend to be simpler and more easily uncovered. Eclipse is nice, and appears to take many of the good things about Visual Studio and leave much of the bad behind. For some projects, it's very useful. For others, it's overkill.
Another item worth reading - the whole book, really - is The Art Of Unix Programming [faqs.org]. For a Windows developer's perspective on the book, see here [joelonsoftware.com]. Needless to say, I don't agree with everything he writes there, but you might find it interesting.
Parent
Metrics (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the target platform that matters in my view, if they took this into account I'm sure that linux would be a lot higher, because it would count all of the Web 2.0 people who are hosting on Linux but write in windows.
Blowing off VB6 burned some bridges (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Blowing off VB6 burned some bridges (Score:5, Interesting)
The lack of a clear upgrade path from VB6 has forced companies to hold off on porting, upgrading or even replacing "legacy" VB apps for a lot longer than they otherwise would. The standard average lifecycle for a LOB app in most corporate environments is about 3 years. We're going on 5 now, and unless Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of the hat somehow, these people are probably not going to go to .NET. They'll go to Java or some other technology, at least those that have the option, because some don't. Microsoft has made it really hard for a lot of folks and they're going to end up paying for that in the long run.
Microsoft squandered the mine gold that was the enormously huge VB developer base. They should have released a follow up to the COM-based VB6 platform with improvements and provided a clear timeline for the jump to the .NET CLR. Instead one day they just announced VB6 was dead, being replaced by something that is arguably better but completely incompatible, at least from a practical standpoint.
Parent
Different niches (Score:5, Interesting)
In a perfect world, this article would distinguish between development "for pay" and all development.
New Ballmer Chant (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Embedded Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Number != percent (Score:4, Insightful)
"Just 64.8 percent targeted the platform as opposed to 74 percent in 2006."
That does *not* automatically mean that the number has declined. There may still be the same number of or more Windows developers, but their percentage is smaller because the other categories have increased.
I hate misleading article titles. The numbers should be thought of as multiple line graphs, not a pie chart.
Vista hurt the numbers, not helped (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad no Mac numbers... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm actually sad about this (Score:4, Interesting)
The hack and slash security patches Microsoft brings out these days often unexpectedly denies features in the API on which solutions are based thus rendering large chunks of our code useless and a workaround must be found.
Security is important in a connected world and indeed not recognised enough my many programmers but the hap hazard ducks and dives in Windows makes it hard to tackle this issue in a structured way. Often I find myself hacking my way around "Security patches" in order to restore functionality in our software.
Add to that this crazy program (I refuse to call it an operating system) called Vista which is is so secure you hardly can run anything on it. I imagine the next version of Windows is 100% secure as it will only run "Notepad" and "Calculator"
So, bottom line. If the Operating System no longer allows us to use the hardware to drive our programs then the OS get's in the way. For me the problem is that I have a huge skill base in Windows and my programming tools that I don't like to give up. But for some of my projects I seriously consider to try my hand at Linux so I can provide a turnkey solution (Include the OS with the software).
MS Windows has become like a government. It is supposed to serve but instead it now insists to rule the IT world.
North American developers? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the point of polling North American developers?
The 11% decrease in Windows targeting could be because one of the 9 still working here switched to Linux.
Re:Nice but worthless data (Score:5, Insightful)
If you carefully pick your 400, your survey isn't legit.
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Re:Nice but worthless data (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
percentage of developers on Linux now - percentage of developers on Linux a year ago = percentage of developers who switched to Linux
3.0 / 8.8 =
percentage of developers who switched to Linux / percentage of developers on Linux a year ago = percentage of Linux developers who switched in the last year
So, the number of Linux developers increased by 34% in the last year.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I still like how people think that C is a platform-dependent language.
I write stuff in C/C++ using OpenGL and it compiles and runs consistently on Windows, OSX, and Linux. I don't need any interpreters (Python) or fancy toolkits or anything.
Platform independence is not a language issue, it's a library / API issue. If you use Win32 or .Net, you're stuck Windows (excepting Mono). If you use Cocoa, MacOSX. I suppose the equivalent on Linux would be glibc or one of the GUI toolkits. You could probably even c