Switching to Linux for Windows development, bad idea?

Question

I was contemplating switching to Linux for C++ development, coming from a Windows environment. Is this a bad idea? My workplace uses Windows and Visual Studio for our projects (some C# and java too, but right now I'm only developing in C++). If they decide to put me on a C# project, would development still possible (mono?)? What are the difficulties in this sort of transition?

Would I have a problem working on their projects and vice versa? I read somewhere that there'd be problems with precompiled headers and such (we do use them), and encodings (tabs/spaces, line endings, etc)..

If it's not too hard to do this switch, how do I get started? IDE? vim+make?

Thanks.

By the way, we make MOSTLY windows software..

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EDIT: Thanks guys, I guess that makes sense..

Answer 1

That's a bad idea. I can see at least two reasons :

• Develop on the same OS you write software for
• Visual Studio rocks

Answer 2

Stick with Windows if you're developing for C++ and C#. The Visual Studio debugger is absolutely brilliant, and it seems that most of the Linux IDEs aren't comparable (except Eclipse for Java stuff). Also, the chances are that you'll be using a different compiler if you're on Linux, and that can cause really weird bugs.

Answer 3

I'm a Mac user (former FreeBSD guy), so I understand your gut feeling. In short: you're going to want to use Visual Studio. It's the best tool there is for your C# projects, period. It's also the best tool for your Windows-centric C++ programming. Even if it wasn't, your testing is going to suffer if you don't run the OS it's going to run on.

On the bright side, always do your development in a virtual machine. Especially on Windows. Use source control and take frequent snapshots of your VM. When you're doing this, it doesn't matter if you run Linux or OS X on your host.

Cheers

Nik