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Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

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Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#51
post #27

For me? No. I work somewhere with thin clients which log in to one OS, which is an OS I do not develop for. I end up remoting in from that OS to another one. It’s a bit clumsy. On some occasions I’ve been unable to do a thing easily and my manager has been receptive to “I can’t do this thing so I will either have to not do it or find a slower and clumsier way”. It doesn’t always get fixed, but I feel it’s understood.…

Tell me you don’t have meaningful equity without telling me you don’t have meaningful equity. This feels like peak “I just work here”.

I do just work there and that’s okay with me.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#52

Nope. My tools work on all three platforms. They all suck pretty hard these days, just in different ways, so what's the difference, really?

Mac's suck with few solutions to various problems. Windows sucks with few solutions to various problems. Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem.

I prefer the latter by rather a lot.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#54
post #26

Currently on macos because the servers we deploy to are linux. Used to work on windows and it was ok, as everything was done from the command line and the application was deployed from the CVS. Realistically I was not really using windows in any meaningful way. Just something to launch a shell from It would be annoying to unlearn the macos keystrokes at this point though

The keystroke issue is such a big thing. It's not just a matter of remapping either. Like Control+C in the terminal is Control+C in the terminal, but Command+C is Control+C sometimes and Control+Shift+C other times.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#55

No I care more about if the job involves solving interesting/novel problems Languages/OSs are just implementation details to me, I don't get why software engineers (especially junior ones) are so obsessed with them To me algorithms/systems in the abstract sense are the actual interesting part of the job

That's kind of my take on it as well. I don't care what it is, I can make it work. If I couldn't make it work, I would be the wrong guy for my job.

At this point you could give me a FreeDOS machine and I'd be like "Well this initially looks super inconvenient, but I realize you won't be able to VOIP call me through the device, and it looks like I can get enough stuff installed to SSH to our dev environment. We're good."

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#56
post #27

For me? No. I work somewhere with thin clients which log in to one OS, which is an OS I do not develop for. I end up remoting in from that OS to another one. It’s a bit clumsy. On some occasions I’ve been unable to do a thing easily and my manager has been receptive to “I can’t do this thing so I will either have to not do it or find a slower and clumsier way”. It doesn’t always get fixed, but I feel it’s understood.…

Tell me you don’t have meaningful equity without telling me you don’t have meaningful equity. This feels like peak “I just work here”.

The vast majority of people have no equity in their employer. That is not a valid requirement for doing your job.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#57

Nope. My tools work on all three platforms. They all suck pretty hard these days, just in different ways, so what's the difference, really?

Mac's suck with few solutions to various problems. Windows sucks with few solutions to various problems. Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem. I prefer the latter by rather a lot.

> Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem.

> I prefer the latter by rather a lot.

Good for you. I'll keep looking for a good way to set up a work vpn in Linux.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac's suck with few solutions to various problems. Windows sucks with few solutions to various problems. Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem. I prefer the latter by rather a lot.

> Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem. > I prefer the latter by rather a lot. Good for you. I'll keep looking for a good way to set up a work vpn in Linux.

For most VPNs, that's a solved problem. Which one are you stuck with?

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#59

A company that forces certain operating system upon its employees may not have right priorities or IT budget. Not dealbreaker but it would make me a little reluctant even if they are forcing my preferred OS.

Most companies want a standard fleet, which means enforcing some choices. This is the norm, not the exception. That doesn't mean they have the wrong priorities, it just means their priorities are for managing the fleet, not tayloring a solution to individuals.

Re: Is primary OS a dealbreaker for you (when taking a new job)?

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux sucks with many solutions to virtually every problem. > I prefer the latter by rather a lot. Good for you. I'll keep looking for a good way to set up a work vpn in Linux.

For most VPNs, that's a solved problem. Which one are you stuck with?

It was OpenVPN with a TOTP 6 digit google authenticator MFA code. It worked just fine with Tunnelblick in MacOS and Viscosity in Windows, but I never found a setup that worked in Linux. And I searched for a while. I had to switch away from linux because there was no good solution to this.

And it's not the only non-easily fixed issue I've had with Linux over the years. The classic saying is "Linux is only free if you don't value your time" and I've found that to be true.

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