The majority of skilled developers prefer Macs or Linux. I've been at large conferences and not seen a single Windows machine. Some developers like Windows, that's fine, but just as many hate it. It's not wrong for a developer to use Windows, but it is wrong for a company to impose it, or even to have it as the default option.
For a company to say "at our company, we use Windows" is to say "We don't give a shit about developers". The issue isn't Windows, the issue is a workplace culture that places the preferences of management over the preferences of developers. Life is too short to work for people who don't respect you, especially when you've got one of the most valuable skills in the world.
I can say that the majority of skilled developers I know use Macs or Linux, and I know a pretty good number of developers (skilled and not-as-skilled).
If you yourself use OS X or Linux, you are much more likely to know primarily people who are similar in this respect (for the same reason that I as a .NET guy don't know many Rails developers), and in any case jdietrich's statement lacked the qualifier.
Totally, I mean you pretty much have to be on Windows to be a good .NET developer (unless you're big on Mono or whatever).
It sounds like the OP is interested in working with "latest and greatest" web technologies, though (no offense), and many of them are developed on Macs or Linux and therefore the best development environment for them is on a Mac or Linux machine.
I think it might just be a culture fit thing, as some people gravitate to .NET type stuff and some people gravitate to node.js or Rails, and just as it's a pain in the ass to get .NET stuff working on a Mac, it's often a pain in the ass to get things like Rails or node.js working on Windows.
Every developer I've met in person prefers Mac/nix for any situation in which Windows development isn't mandatory.
Am I looking at a biased sample? Maybe, maybe not. I mostly operate in the web development world, but I know developers of all stripes. And none of them prefers Windows.
That being said, there are developers and companies who prefer to develop for MS platforms as a business decision. I.e. they want to target that market. But that doesn't mean they actually prefer developing on Windows. It just means Windows is imposed on them by their business choice. Analogously, I don't care much for Xcode or Objective-C, but I still write IOS apps because it's an important market.
I prefer Windows. I work in a cross platform shop, my code needs to run on Mac and Windows but unless I'm trying to track down a Mac specific bug I'll do the initial coding on Windows. For what I am trying to do (cross platform C++ development) Windows has better tools. Visual Studio has a better C++ compiler than Xcode. Visual Studio has a much better debugger than Xcode. Beyond Compare is Windows only and I haven't found anything that matches it on Mac (please let me know if there is something that's as good on Mac). Source Insight is only available on Windows - I know that SlickEdit is available for the Mac but I much prefer Source Insight.
All my personal opinion that applies to my particular circumstances only.
While dtrace is a wonderful tool, it is a little disappointing that when Apple adopted it from Sun that they modified it so that setting a simple flag in your code (P_LNOATTACH) will prevent it being traced. http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2008/01/18/mac-os-x-and-the-miss...
And the skilled developers aren't the young cats, they are the old dogs. Don't confuse what's popular with what's good.
Personally, I know just as many terrible old developers as I know young and just as many excellent young developers as old. What you're saying here is passing judgement on a group of people due to their age just the same as the OP appears to be passing judgement on a group of people due to their development platform preference.
Of course there are skilled young developers as much as there is terrible old developers. I was responding in context of the OP wasn't trying to pass judgement on age group simply trying to restore balance. Sorry if it was unclear.
I'd argue that is largely based on the type of conferences you go to. At Google I/O or WWDC, I'd agree with you in a heartbeat. If you go to a .NET conference, I'd guess you wouldn't see too many macbooks actually running OS X.
Windows developers are out there, they're just probably not attending the same talks as you are and probably not reading many of the same blogs.
Yes, but .NET is a Microsoft platform. Are there any non-Microsoft-specific platforms for which Windows is the best development environment? Because the majority of languages, frameworks, etc in the world are not made by Microsoft.
That's impossible to answer, because the definition of best is completely subjective.
Best is what works for you in whatever role you happen to be in. I know people using windows coding in RoR, Python, Java, etc with a high degree of efficiency. I know others who are doing the same thing on Linux and OS X. It works for them.
It's not wrong for a developer to use Windows, but it is wrong for a company to impose it, or even to have it as the default option.
I agree with the only caveat being if the dev shop is working on a platform-native stack (like .NET or iOS) - in which case you obviously have to use the 'family' platform for consistency and to be able to obtain all features (like being able to compile + emulate an iOS app - which can only be done on a Mac).
"The majority of skilled developers prefer Macs or Linux."
Do you have any data to back that up or is it just an uninformed opinion? In my experience the majority of skilled developers use windows but I wouldn't try to extrapolate from my experience (as a windows developer) to a univeral truth.
There are reasons for mandating windows (or osx or *nix) devices. Whether they are valid reasons depends on the circumstances. Personally I prefer to develop on the system that I am developing for but that is not always feasible (ios) or desirable (anything involving xcode).
For a company to say "at our company, we use Windows" is to say "We don't give a shit about developers". The issue isn't Windows, the issue is a workplace culture that places the preferences of management over the preferences of developers. Life is too short to work for people who don't respect you, especially when you've got one of the most valuable skills in the world.