Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#281

Post by Beltalowda » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #265

Beltalowda wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like doing useful things; switching tools merely because a corporate policy says so is not useful (whether there are good or bad reasons for that policy is besides the point here).

> is not useful Says who? I think (as a devil's advocate) it's very useful that people are interchangeable, and that tools are similar enough to allow people to collaborate. I also think that if (imaginary percentages used) a 10% reduction in productivity because a worker can't use their most bestest tool ever is worth it if it means I can get 40 of those workers for the same price as 10 workers that are proficient i…

I'm not saying there aren't completely valid reasons for a business to have certain policies limiting the software used by their employees (including OS choice), it's just not useful for me. Learning a new language or technology is useful for me because I can then use that language or technology. But switching OS or editor or whatnot well enough to be my daily driver? I don't really see how that's useful for me. I don't really learn anything new, and I won't be any more productive; it'll just be "a thing I have to do, grumble". That's it's useful for the business is a separate thing.

> tools are similar enough to allow people to collaborate.

I think this reason in particular isn't all that valuable though; especially not since people tend to customize their setups anyway. I once worked somewhere that mandated software choice (including IDE) for this reason and I never saw any value in it.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#282

Post by lbotos » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 7:56 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #98

politelemon wrote: post #54

> Due to Microsoft Windows' dominance in desktop operating systems, Windows is the platform most targetted by spyware, viruses, and ransomware. This is poor reasoning and a misunderstanding of how security works. Any org should be happy with any OS, as long as sufficient security controls for it exist. Anyone who oversees Windows estates, or works in desktop security, can tell you that they exist and are extensive, a…

I think there's a good bit of simple butthurt behind it as well, seeing as Microsoft owns their biggest (and far larger) competitor.

Heh.

So, no, it was always a Mac/Linux place and around 2019 is when the team grew large enough that some new hires asked if they could get a Windows machine. That's when it was written down: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/commit/3a47ff...

This was after the GitHub acquisition but I know for a fact there was one engineer who really wanted a Windows machine but IT was not interested in adding it to the fleet as we were already heavily Mac/Linux.

(Source: I work there.)

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#283

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 7:59 PM UTC

ironmagma wrote: post #182

marcosdumay wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it, is the complain about the "you can ensure your teams are working at the right things at the right time" part? How is wanting your products to be aligned with their vision evidence of dysfunction?

It implies a major problem in their org is/was pesky developers working on things that weren't assigned. Why weren't those things assigned? Bad PMs who don't care about the pain developers feel? Not enough developer freedom? The fact that the roadmap is completely disconnected from what's actually important for the business/developers? It's a product for developers; the developers should know better than anyone what…

It's interesting that what I read there is just a company saying "hey, we have this nice TODO app that interfaces with your development tools". There's nothing there about developers management, freedom or anything else.

Looks like corporate lingo is no better than a Rorschach test.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#284

Post by mmcnl » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 8:01 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #16

The pretext for banning Windows is comically bad. Paying extra for Mac hardware is perfectly fine (no, encouraged!), but paying $100 or so to upgrade Windows Home to Windows Professional is prohibitively expensive? That's such a joke. I have no trouble with companies mandating one OS or the other. But when the justification for the policy is so bad it looks petty and ideological as opposed to the result of a level-he…

I agree, it's very petty. Engineers should keep their personal vendettas out of business.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#285

Post by mmcnl » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 8:03 PM UTC

ansible wrote: post #58

From the Gitlab approved hardware list, today I learned that Dell has some 15.6in screen laptops that don't have a numeric keypad: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/laptops/new-15-5560-wor... Also supports ECC, nice! I strongly dislike numeric keypads in general, and especially on a laptop. I want to be centered on the display, not shoved to the side. I only rarely use the numeric keypad.

I had a 15" Inspiron 15R SE almost 10 years ago, I loved that it had a big screen without a numpad.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#286

Post by penguin_booze » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 8:06 PM UTC

Avoiding Windows operating would be an ethical choice going forward, in my opinion. Windows has become a bloatware; it's a memory hog - no amount of RAM is enough. And to top if off, with every update, your hardware becomes obsolete because it lacks a fancy chip.

With Office products being increasingly accessible via the web browser, I think corporations should really start thinking about weaning themselves off Windows.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#287

Post by ansible » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 8:18 PM UTC

mmcnl wrote: post #285

ansible wrote: post #58

From the Gitlab approved hardware list, today I learned that Dell has some 15.6in screen laptops that don't have a numeric keypad: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/laptops/new-15-5560-wor... Also supports ECC, nice! I strongly dislike numeric keypads in general, and especially on a laptop. I want to be centered on the display, not shoved to the side. I only rarely use the numeric keypad.

I had a 15" Inspiron 15R SE almost 10 years ago, I loved that it had a big screen without a numpad.

2015 / 2016 I bought the original HP Omen gaming laptop because it didn't have a numeric keypad. There weren't a lot of other choices in the 15.6in category.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#288

Post by jupp0r » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 8:56 PM UTC

jeffwask wrote: post #270

jupp0r wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing an important point: engineers want to use the tools that work best for them. They don’t care much about the things they can’t see. Taking a job with a super restrictive IT environment that would prevent me from doing my job effectively would be a deterrent to work for that company. I know many people who feel similar to this. The opportunity cost of not being able to hire those people or giving them o…

Tell me you haven't used Windows in a decade without telling me you haven't used Windows in a decade

Until 4 months ago, I was leading a team responsible for a cross platform desktop app with 20 million daily users, most of them on Windows. I used Windows daily and found/reported numerous bugs to Microsoft. I would never have made it my primary development environment, but I had some people on my team who liked it for that.

I think your uninformed ad hominem attacks are really impolite by the way.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#289

Post by salzig » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #130

salzig wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because windows can't run browsers anymore? I would say they don't give a f*ck on the operating system you use, as long it includes a browser. It's just their workforce, where they don't want to see anyone working with windows.

Which means their workforce doesn't give a fuck about supporting CI/CD pipelines used by Windows development, unless they have some mental powers to test them with having Windows around.

So, you think a very small Modul that communicates via http only, and written in different language then the main project (go instead of Ruby), is a reason that the developers of the main project (ruby, only supported on Linux) should also be able to work on Windows, or even be supported in doing so, cause ~three people need to support the gitlab-ci runner on windows?

Edit: oh, and testing of those gitlab-ci functionalities can easily be done in a VM.

Re: Microsoft Windows is prohibited at Gitlab

#290

Post by btschaegg » Fri, Aug 05, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

salzig wrote: post #23

horsawlarway wrote: post #9

I'm no fan of Windows myself, but I find this a fairly bad policy. If nothing else - what's not used is not tested. And if you expect any real population of users to be using Windows machines with your products, you should have developers/PMs/QA/support interacting with your products using Windows machines. I see this as: We're saving a bit of money and making ITs life easier, and in exchange users will get a worse p…

Gitlab is essentially a website, and Microsoft Edge is just Chrome. I think there isn't any reason to test on windows anymore.

Then I'll give you one: autocrlf.

In fact, if you paste text into GitLab's "Web IDE" in a windows browser, the results are (or at least used to be? We stopped using it because of that) horrible to the max. Of course with the added nuance that copy-pasting a word vs. a paragraph vs. an entire file produced vastly different results, too. That one was fun to figure out.