What do you develop?

bringitdown

Just wonderin, I see http://www.irishdev.com has a distinct M$ slant as does many of the thread here.

Are there any Un*x coders, is there a future .... any thoughts

aidan_walsh

I'm mostly Java, so for the most part any worries in that respect are unnecessary. Should be the same way when I get some more C# under my belt.

As for whether there is a future for *NIX, of course there is. Universities in the States still use it for workstations, you have every distro of Linux under the sun and now that Solaris has had a free version released there could well be a bigger gathering for that here as well.

Merrion

Not much financial future in unix as the work available is either (a) being done for free by a GPL knitting circle or (b) large enough to save substantially by doing the development offshore.

bringitdown

Merrion wrote:

Not much financial future in unix as the work available is either (a) being done for free by a GPL knitting circle or (b) large enough to save substantially by doing the development offshore.

Hmmm .... but how does that (apart from the GPL part) differ from other platforms...? Can offshore teams not develop Java, .NET etc.

kenmc

I develop purely embedded stuff, so whatever the chip is will usually dictate what the OS is - at the moment it's OS20 and uCos. It's been VxWorks and OS9 and RTLinux in the past though.

Merrion

Hmmm .... but how does that (apart from the GPL part) differ from other platforms...? Can offshore teams not develop Java, .NET etc.

The cut off point at which the administrative overhead of offshoring is outweighed by the salary savings is still quite high - in the 20+ developer years effort scale. These types of system are more likely to be unix (and mainframe) stuff than PC systems.

Hobbes

Merrion wrote:

Not much financial future in unix as the work available is either (a) being done for free by a GPL knitting circle or (b) large enough to save substantially by doing the development offshore.

offshoring is not OS dependant.

As for the knitting circle. It really depends on what you are working on. Some stuff competes fine with open source stuff.

I am currently working on Java/J2EE/Struts. Stuff I am working on is testing on W32, Linux, AIX.

Merrion

offshoring is not OS dependant.

Not directly - but it is project size dependent (as per above) which in turn is generally OS dependent.

Hobbes

Merrion wrote:

Not directly - but it is project size dependent (as per above) which in turn is generally OS dependent.

Hardly as there are large MS + *NIX projects.

halenger

doodle_sketch wrote:

that Solaris has had a free version released there could well be a bigger gathering for that here as well.

I wouldn't think Solaris would have a big effect on anythnig much. Aside from not liking it personally it's just not that great on anything but sparc, so people tell me (versions 7 and 8 both refused to install on any of my systems).

Speaking of 7 and 8... Everything before 9 was free or at least had a few version, as far as I'm aware. I could be wrong. Open to correction and all that.

But personally I don't think free Solaris 10 will do a whole lot, though... It's AMD64 compatible, isn't it? Now THAT could be a good point to it. Hrm... Which would mean that Sun have started making it useful on x86 which means I should get a copy. :P

And to put this BACK on topic. :P I've usually developped java mainly so it'd be cross platform. My 4th year project for college will be based in linux this time so bit of a shift for me. That said a lotta small, I mean VERY, small coding things I do are in unix or at least that's the only place I use them. Some java (that's what I mean by only place I use them) and some in C.

Stugots

I develop telecom products in cross platform C. It had been primarily embedded code (VxWorks and Embedded Linux) but now the whole lot is being ported to the PC environment (WinDoze and Linux). A lot of very big customers insist that everything must be on Linux. I'm not convinced there is an actual long term cost benefit for this type of thing since the OS becomes such a small part of the overall cost.

bringitdown

stugots wrote:

telecom products

By default telecoms operators nearly always insist on critical systems being deployed on Unix or variants simply because Windows is not yet considered carrier grade.

Of course it depends on what the particular product is and importantly what it is used for, but this has been my experience.

But getting back on topic I find it interesting that Windows is leading so far. In college (granted they were idealistic days 4 years ago) we all tended toward jobs that were Unix and / or Java based simply because of the negativity attributed to Windows and its specific languages. I don't mind programming on the platform myself but have found myself on Unix or variant systems for almost all of my time post-college. At some stage I do hope to widen my general skillset a little as it seems prudent and at the same time specialise in summat more specific.

Anyways thanx for the replies so far.

JohnK

The company I work for is a microsoft house so all my development is for windows.

daymobrew

halenger wrote:

I wouldn't think Solaris would have a big effect on anythnig much. Aside from not liking it personally it's just not that great on anything but sparc, so people tell me (versions 7 and 8 both refused to install on any of my systems).

Speaking of 7 and 8... Everything before 9 was free or at least had a few version, as far as I'm aware. I could be wrong. Open to correction and all that.

But personally I don't think free Solaris 10 will do a whole lot, though... It's AMD64 compatible, isn't it? Now THAT could be a good point to it. Hrm... Which would mean that Sun have started making it useful on x86 which means I should get a copy. :P

Solaris 10 supports AMD64. I've not had problems installing Solaris 10 on x86 machines (Intel and AMD). Sun are really pushing Solaris 10 (due out in a few weeks AFAIK). My wife said she heard it advertised on 98FM!!
I'm not sure whether Solaris 10 will be free.

halenger

daymobrew wrote:

I'm not sure whether Solaris 10 will be free.

Free here for Non-Commercial Use. That makes sense. Didn't think about that before.

Don't think I've been eager to try Solaris before. :P

yossarin

All Java/J2EE/ tiny bit of j2me at the moment on windows for development and linux/mobiles for the actual execution enviroment.
Will be picking up .Net in my spare time for the old CV.
want to move to Symbian C++ in the next while. I'm reading a lot about the palmOne OS being popular in the states as well, so might look at that.

A friend of mine works for an MS affiliate company so all their stuff is in .Net. Its funny how often the bigger business picture can overrule debate on what the technical best solution might be.

scojones

Until recently it was mainly Java and C# but now i've changed direction. I used to code in C years ago before i started college and I seem to have gone back that way. Everything I develop now is in C or C++ for GNU/Linux. I'm currently working on my own Web Server,Web Browser and FTP Server. The web server and browser will be a living project (I hope to keep adding to them). I know i'm re-inventing the wheel - but I feel this is the best way for me to learn how to play with file handling, procs and threads, et al in Linux. I've also purchased "begining linux programming" and "advanced Linux programming" which are two very informative books!