the web log of Evert

Actually, the title of this posting is bit inaccurate… There is no vs. when it comes to operating systems. All there is is an and!

Almost every day I run into people who are… narrow-minded, for the lack of a better word.

Narrow-minded, because they approach the whole thing backwards. They first set their mind on a specific OS, and then they look at what the options are to deal with the project at hand.

Wrong, wrong, wrong…! You first look at what the best way is to deal with the situation at hand, and then you use the operating system that application runs best on!
Both Microsoft Windows and Linux (and Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, IRIX, etc etc) have their strong and their weak sides.
However, if I were to start summing them up here, this posting would…

• end up with more words than there are in the bible (if you are wondering: 593,493 words in the O.T. and 181,253 words in the N.T. add up to 774,746 words 8) )
• get endless discussions and flamewars in its comments.

So the next time you have to make a choice on the right software for a project, look at your resources (budget, hardware, etc) and then first find the right application for your needs.
Once you have that, there is a good chance it simply runs on only 1 OS.
If this is not the case, then and only then, you can start making operating system choices.

And don’t worry about ending up with a mixed environment. I know from long experience that in quite some cases Microsoft & Linux talk better together than Microsoft & Microsoft, or Linux & Linux for that matter.

To sum up: Computers and operating systems work well together, so you can and should go for the best of both worlds.

(It’s not like the whole Star Trek vs. Star Wars discussion where there is a clear winner)