I could not get leiningen to install under Win10 a week ago, was quite a sobering experience. Some site that was linked to download from got a 404, then I got directed towards some bat script, which complained about HTTPS certification issues (lol)?
Took less than 5 minutes under a linux server though, so thats something, I guess. But still, its kinda mind-blowing how much Win users are ignored.
Fine if you have the option. I shared a house with a Java developer for a corporate bank and he didn't have the choice. His laptop had to be able to log into the corporate intranet and serve as his sole development environment. There are millions of Java developers using Windows so what's your point?
I saw David adding commands that Windows users need in the docs. Personally I don't like treating Windows users like how I treated Linux/macOS users. You chose Windows, you chose the hard way, you have to figure it out on you own.
"You chose Windows, you chose the hard way, you have to figure it out on you own."
I don't understand this adversial positioning.
If most open source software treats windows as a first class citizen among supported platforms then surely the project that does not follow this suit is the odd man out
.. not the users who use windows as their computational substrate.
Feeling difficult to understand your reply as a non-English developer. Anyway it's my personal opinion and I'm not official ClojureScript maintainer. The lead maintainer do care about Windows users.
David, I think the Clojurescript Quick Start guide (https://clojurescript.org/guides/quick-start) is a wasted opportunity. I don't think new users want to wade through a page full of compiler flags when Leiningen + template is the default for most of the Clojure(script) community. This merely adds to the impression that Clojure(script) is for experts.
New users (and experts as well) do not find Leinginen and templates easy to use. The response to the Quick Start has been overwhelmingly positive from new and experienced users.
I personally love the work that you've done in this area recently. I do have the feeling that users are still exposed to quite a bit of plumbing, as they might be used to <command> <declared intention> style commands from elsewhere ("npm install nodemon" or what-have-you).
We don't really compete with PureScript, BuckleScript, ReasonML or even Elm and this is heavily reflected in our surveys. The only real competition at this point is Scala/Scala.js or full stack JavaScript.
> Personally I don't like treating Windows users like how I treated Linux/macOS users. You chose Windows, you chose the hard way, you have to figure it out on you own.
I dunno if you're trolling here (and if so, well done), but this attitude really gets under my skin. Excuse me for ranting at you, but I need to get this off my chest.
I think that this attitude is harmful to open source projects, and to projects of all kinds. In my experience, the people who use Windows usually haven't 'chosen' Windows; that decision was made for them by bureaucracy or money or time.
I go to a state university in a metro area, and roughly 90% of the people in my CS program use Windows. These kids have part-time jobs and families who need them. They commute over an hour each way to get to school, because they can't afford rent in the city. They don't have the cash to drop on a Mac. A lot of them are still on their first laptop, which they got back in high school, chosen for them by well-meaning parents with no clue about arcana like driver compatibility. It's probably got a smallish HDD, or a tiny SSD, barely enough space for a VM and Visual Studio (which, by the way, a mandatory class requires). This laptop is their primary and only computer, and it runs Windows. Maybe it'd run Linux too, if you didn't mess up the install. You wanna toss those dice with your only tool for getting your homework done on time?
And the intrepid few who do slap Linux on their computer pay for it, with their time. Every single Linux User Group meeting we have someone who comes in asking how to set up their laptop with the school wifi. These are smart people, often with graduate degrees, who struggle with wpa-supplicant et al; and we aren't even talking Arch here, just as many issues come up with Ubuntu. Windows Just Works (TM), in a way that Linux doesn't, and probably never will (and even really probably shouldn't). Linux may be free as in freedom, but it's not free as in beer, not if time is money.
So this is just one subset of the people you're targeting when you support the 82% [0] of computer users who use Windows. And I understand completely that Windows is a deeply unfun system to support. But supporting Windows is going to open up all kinds of contributors from nontraditional backgrounds to your project. Studies show that diverse teams are more creative [1] and, in a business context, more profitable [2]. (Side note: looking at that Wikipedia page, maybe it's time to support a first-class IDE for Android?)
These are the users you most desperately want to attract to your project, the ones who think differently than you do, who come from different backgrounds and whose ideas are shaped by different experiences than you. There are all kinds of initiatives going on right now (LLVM, for example [3]) to attract a more diverse open source developer base, and I think that's great. Supporting Windows is one more way to achieve that.
>Linux may be free as in freedom, but it's not free as in beer, not if time is money
Open source project developers which are not funded are also spending their valuable time to create something. Giving them grief for not supporting an platform (one that especially is anti-open) like windows is also not productive.
When software corporations push their software using their market power in adversarial fashion, some open source devs may opt to be adversarial in not choosing to support the platforms. It is a way to combat fire with fire.
Microsoft played major role in suppressing desktop linux with its adversarial, monopolistic policies pushing windows which is the reason why many people are robbed of choice.
I don't know why the open source developers who spend time giving something to the community should bear the brunt of evils of corporations.
This is similar to large corporations (who pollute everywhere because it would affect their profit margins not to) love movements like Go Green , etc (which are important in individual level ) as they divert attention and guilt to the consumer when the company could have done otherwise.
For me, I'm a web developer. And we all know how web developers hate Internet Explorers. I was a Ubuntu users in my first years learning programming before I got a macbook. There are always reasons for me to hate Windows, even though Windows has majority of the users.
Took less than 5 minutes under a linux server though, so thats something, I guess. But still, its kinda mind-blowing how much Win users are ignored.