I’ve stated before that I work with Mozilla code on three different operating systems. My desktop supports Fedora Core 15 and Windows 7. My MacBook runs MacOS 10.6. These three give me coverage on all three platforms.
That said, I realized a few minutes ago each system serves a different purpose for me:
- With Fedora, I get fast compile times, especially incremental builds, and fast test execution.
- With Windows, I get a really good free debugger with Visual Studio Express.
- With Mac, I get portability: I can write my code on the go.
It’s actually a pretty good situation, I think. Is anyone else in a similar situation?
I end up running linux everywhere. cause i like fast compile times, and portability.
but also good debugger, and im ok with gdb. 😉
worst case: i can dual boot windows if i want visual studio.
i like having the proper driver support for all of them too. I had a mac before. ditched it. Not good enough outside the OSX world.
Having to support different platforms is painful, specially doing C/C++.
When on Windows I try to install cygwin to mimic the Linux toolset and build system. That allows me to use the same debugger (NetBeans, or Eclipse) which are very good.
I think Visual Studio is a several GB install, which I once did, but I’m glad I don’t have to do again.