When I used to think about Linux from my bias as a Windows developer I used to think about posts like this (courtesy PennyArcade):

Yes, all the way back in the dusts of time – say 2002. Well, things have changed a lot since then. We have all kinds of great Linux integration points. And I must say – from my experiments and fumbling around with Linux – I remain very impressed with it as an ecosystem. I can’t think of a better central point when it comes to running lean, mean DevOps – Chef and Puppet run natively on it and setup couldn’t be easier. And I love the control. All that CLI goodness just takes me back to my first days writing programs on my old C64.

My good friends Jeremy Rule and Rich Maines wrote recently on Microsoft embracing Linux: “Did you know that 20% of virtual machines on Azure are Linux today? Azure also provides first-class support for Java, Node.js, Python, Ruby, and PHP and our recently announced Azure cloud security tools will work both on premise and in Amazon’s cloud.”

I know personally I’ve had to step up my game in terms of embracing Linux as an OS – including the LAMP stack (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PhP) – and Java. We can’t afford to be insular and think that MSFT provides the best in class tool for every given scenario. And on the Linux side of things, combining your development with the VS IDE means you’ll have enterprise-level debugging and repeatability that your team has been craving. Wow!

Anyway as I’ve left behind my prejudices and misconceptions about what Linux and OS programming is like, I’ve become a better programmer and a much better architect. I’m glad the old adversarial ways have passed behind; cooperation and integration is the new game and it frees up a lot of limitations that used to hurt our customers. Nicely done guys!

Other Points

• A great article on 31 points successful people have used to form positive life habits. Three that popped out – get enough sleep (no screen time 1 hr before bed), waking up early and working out is nonnegotiable, and eating the frog (putting the most important things first).
• A great comic on the long road to confronting climate change, highly recommended.