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Killer Apps—You're Doing it Wrong

During my morning journey through all that is new and noteworthy today, I ran across this article about a "killer development tool" for Linux. The author of this article claims that the tool is "going to make ISVs and other programmers start to love developing for Linux."

I must admit that my interest was piqued. I've done at least a little bit of development on each of the major platforms (Windows, Mac, various flavors of Linux), and I must say that tool support had a big effect on the pleasantness of each experience. Furthermore, while I understand that many developers are quite comfortable with Linux, the lack of a "big neon sign" saying "start here" was a big turn off for me (contrast this with Visual Studio for Windows and XCode for MacOS, and you'll begin to understand what I mean).

So what is this amazing tool? As it turns out, it's a package that helps developers find incompatibilities between their applications and various distributions of Linux.

That's a "killer" application? It's going to make me "love" developing for Linux?

Pardon my incredulity, but applying a band-aid over a problem that doesn't even exist (for the most part) on other platforms does not a killer application make. Nor will it make a person "love" developing for that platform. At the very most, one might say that it "makes the platform less painful" or "eases the burden associated with developing for the platform."

But "love?"

Not so much. I think I'll stick with Windows and MacOS for now, thankyouverymuch.

So today's lesson: if your "killer application" just eases the pain associated with a problem that doesn't exist in other environments, you're doing it wrong.

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