Linux is gaining as a development platform

[viking60]

More and more developers use Eclipse for their programing. Eclipse is mainly Java based with a lot of plugins.
Lotus Notes and Zend Studio are based on Eclipse. The environment programmers use, are mainly Windows but this share is rapidly deteriorating and Linux is gaining a lot of ground. From 2007 Windows went down from 74 % to 58 % and Linux gained from 20 % to 33 %.

[rvause]

I am not sure about the scenario for development on Windows, but from my experience using other people's computers at work I noticed that tools I rely on every day are not available by default (ssh, grep, tail, cat, python, apt, pip, make, bzr, svn, git ...). This is a blocker for me.

Are these figures based soley on Eclipse users? There are loads of other IDEs and editors that are popular: Komodo, Netbeans, Textmate, Aptana, Wing IDE, Geany, Gedit, Vim, Emacs ... etc

[viking60]

Yes this is based solely on Eclipse that is the largest development platform with about 33 %. The figures above are what eclipse users use as a platform.
And that is an impressive list of IDEs I think Netbeans used to have the no.1 spot but the pros these days like eclipse.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-20007229-62.html

[rvause]

That makes sense. I tried Netbeans with a PHP setup recently when I was working on some old PHP code. It is pretty sleek in comparison to Eclipse but still Java-punches your ram on startup and feels a little OTT.

I have also recently tried Eclipse+Pydev which is a really great Python IDE, but again found the performance an issue. Also, not being able to create a dark theme for syntax highlighting was a deal-breaker.
If I was developing Java, I would go straight away to Eclipse, but as long as I am working primarily with Python it's Wing IDE all the way, and I bet a lot of Python devs would agree. Then again, the Python world is WAY different to the Java world.

[viking60]

Yes well I am a PHP/Mysql guy mostly and I find Netbeans ok for that. And I have to admit I use some proprietary software under Windows - in a virtualbox under Linux of course
I will have to give Eclipse a spin one of these days.

[rvause]

Netbeans is great for PHP, I especially like that when saving you can have it automatically fire the changes to an SSH server, and the remote debugging support for xdebug is great. Have you tried Zend studio? Although I haven't tried it, real PHP developers tell me that its fantastic.

[viking60]

I have tried it years ago. It is the "standard" for PHP programming, but I seem to remember that I was not that happy with it at the time. Probably me not willing to learn though. With some experience it is supposed to be the Rolls Royce of PHP programming. I remember that is cost a lot of money at the time though. So I went for simpler editors. Netbeans is harder to learn than Zend, so I guess i was the price policy that scared me of.

[dedanna1029]

Eclipse project releases major update of open source IDE

Edit: Also see: Enter the new Eclipse

Both links courtesy @onlyopensource on Twitter, and of course, Helios.