why Unix?

[Sergey Gromov]

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:19:40 -0400, Jussi Jumppanen wrote:

>> As a commandline utility, it can be combined with other stuff such 
>> as ls, sort, grep, sed, awk, etc... I don't know if I'd start there 
>> though...
> 
> Replace ls with dir, download the Win32 version of grep, sed, awk 
> and you can run all those tools just fine from the Windows command 
> line, or from within any decent editor.
> 
> You don't have to go to Unix to find the command line.

Windows shell (cmd) sucks.  And Windows scripting (BAT-files) suck.
Using Cygwin tools is a pain because Cygwin emulates a Unix-like file
system view while other tools produce and expect native Windows paths.
And FAR, being the best shell available, still doesn't support path
auto-completion while even standard CMD does.

Windows is my main development platform, and it drives me nuts.  I'd
move to Linux but I'm afraid of little important things getting in the
way, like a requirement to use Outlook for my corporate mail, and Flash
CS4 for development.  Even if it's possible I can't afford being
semi-paralyzed for at least a couple of weeks while all those nuances
are being sorted out.