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| OS used in a electronics development setting |
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| guenthert:
--- Quote from: bsccara on June 08, 2021, 02:10:52 am ---I'm currently developing a tool for electronics development work to be controlled by a computer. --- End quote --- Perhaps I'm misreading this, but to me this sounds ambiguously phrased. If the tool is expected to run on an engineer's desk, then Windows seems to be preferred in the EE world (I guess -- I have a software 'engineering' background and prefer Linux, as do most of my former colleagues). If however that tool is to be run externally to any engineer's desktop, say for 24/7 test or production, then Linux is the obvious choice (just give it some nice web GUI so that the Windows guys don't get scared) if you (and those developing and maintaining that tool) are already familiar with it (but why do you ask then?). |
| NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: nctnico on June 08, 2021, 03:45:37 pm ---Nowadays you'd be foolish to develop for Windows only. Linux is pretty common in engineering workplaces. --- End quote --- Windows 10 also has WSL so if you support Linux, there's a chance it will just work on Windows 10. |
| Karel:
If you want to develop a tool that needs to have a GUI, than there's only one good choice: Qt https://www.qt.io/ |
| Siwastaja:
Windows-linux 2:1 is very close to what I expected to see. One third is a massive customer base. Modern software development practices emphasis cross-platform whenever possible. If you have competent people working for you, the extra cost of supporting both Windows and linux is negligible. If you choose to only support Windows, it's basically saying "f*** you, we are not interested in being helpful, cope." Those using linux mainly will cope and work around the limitations you gave them, but it will cost them time, and if available, they will turn to a competitor who offers the linux tool once available, so you are at a risk of losing the business. OTOH, if you only decide to support linux, you are completely locking out some part of Windows users who are just unable to cope because it has been traditionally possible to work on Windows only so they never learned to work around. All in all, for the widest audience, you absolutely must support Windows but not supporting linux is likely a very bad choice, so do support both. In best case, all your tools/UIs/codebases except embedded core itself are written in such a way that providing support for all major OSes is a matter of running compile, running a simple unit test on each system, and packaging the files. |
| Red Squirrel:
I personally prefer Linux because I'm not tied into a closed proprietary ecosystem. But I do find I am sometimes limiting myself as there is just not as much good professional grade software that works in it (general purpose CAD for example) and if I buy a piece of hardware it's a gamble as to if it will work in Linux or not or be easy to do so (sometimes it works, but it's ways harder than in Windows). Or if I want to get into something like say, FPGA development, I need to figure out how to do it in Linux. That said I still prefer Linux for every day use and I will use ease of use/compatibility as a deciding factor if I buy something. If developing a product I would just try to make it as universal as possible. Make it work in a web browser or make it use serial and make the software open source and provide documentation such as the serial protocol. This saves you from having to officially support other platforms but at least enables the product to be used on other platforms if someone wants to develop the software for it. Of course if you put effort to make it cross platform then even better. I hate that lot of companies go all copyright nazi on software that on it's own does nothing. If you are selling hardware, the software is only there to make it work to it's fullest extent, it should be free/open source. Same with drivers. Wanting to keep the hardware itself closed source is another story I have less against that, but the software that is required to use the product absolutely should be open source. |
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