What operating system should I be using? How should I set up the root directory?
Where do web developers store their projects?
I'm coming from using a Chromebook to do programming which was simple and straight forwards (I know cringe). Now that I move over to windows and the environment is a little different. I'm trying to figure out where web developers store their projects? What do u guys use as an operating system? I just learned that windows and Linux are to different operating systems.
31 Replies
Most devs code on either Win or Mac and then use Linux as their server. You code using WebStorm, VS Code, Vim, etc. Store your code in a GitHub repo, then pull it down to your Linux server for the world to consume it.
What does that mean use Linux as their server?
When you're ready to ship your project out the the world wide web, you don't host it on your home computer, you rent a server to use for hosting. And that server almost always runs Linux
Ok gotcha. What about where u store the root directory of a project? right now I got them stored in C:...../Onedrive..../projects/ which later found out it was a no go.
Windows also has WSL which is Linux env inside windows. That's how I develop
Never store it on one drive
I've seen too many people have issues because they did that.
Developers use git
Ok. Yeah i just installed git. Glad i caught on before i got too deep in a project
ok. so back out of my onedrive. Should i have a file path of something like this /C:/user/username/projects
#Beej's Guide to Git is a great read to learn fit
Honestly itβs up to you, as long as itβs a consistent place to store your projects
i would put it in the documents
don't put it in the desktop, as putting files there (on windows 10 and 11) can cause some slow-downs
and if you use a laptop with an hdd, then it is so much worse
Ok thats good to know
also don't put in the user folder, as you then forget you did that and will panic-search your projects and won't find it
also, windows may not like that very much
specially if it isn't a local account
then it won't even be in your onedrive (if you want it, as a 2nd layer)
alright. ummm. Ok. Very good to know
Kinda wild i had to npkill more projects than ones I had completed π€£
that happens
least you know about npkill π
Yeah XD Another question but kinda unrelating. When creating a vite app last night, it took sooo long- prob took a solid 15s-20s to get it up and running. if i were to guess, this isn't normal. Does this have something to do with using the default command line in vs-code?
r u saying it took 15s-20s after u ran
npm create vite@latest?
15s to 20s seems normal to me specifically if u r using framework
btw i am also on Chromebook lolYeah
r u using framework?
like react or something
Yeah react
yep it's totally normal
cause it is downloading all the dependencies
and settings up the workspace
but once the set up is done and running there shouldn't be any other issues
ah alright lol. idk why i thought it was so much faster
It is a lot faster compared to the old CRA xD
pnpm is worth looking into
Yeah thats true XD I'll take a peek at pnpm
Im considering looking into WSL
This was also some help. Thx u for this
If I go with this route, would I have to reinstall node, git, etc for Linux? Or will it automatically work?
depends
if you use docker, no
if you just go in raw, then you will need node, at least
Ok. Glad I asked
I appreciate ur guys quick responses btw
i should be sleeping now, but i just didnt manage to fall asleep yet
Ain't that a mood. Last night I ended up watching a movie on yt. Fell asleep right after
that's my plan
Since you just learned about different operating systems, you may not be seeking this level of knowledge, but running Linux generally puts you much closer to the actual operation of the machine than Windows.
Also, I definitely second the use of WSL if you're going to run Windows. There are several projects where Windows introduced niggling vagaries in the development process whose easiest solution was switching to WSL.
Despite the responses here, the 2024 Stack Overflow survey says that more devs are running Linux than Windows. (The chart doesn't show this clearly because different flavors of Linux are reported separately, but the total is ~58% are using sort of Linux for work. (Plus another ~17% using WSL, so ΒΎ of the market is Linux-based.))
Personally, I've been running Linux since I loaded Slackware on my Pentium β
‘ from 3Β½β floppies in 1998, and I can't take how little power over the operation of the system Windows users have. At the very least, you ought to consider trying out a beginner-friendly distribution like Ubuntu. Quite a few of your programs like Chrome, VS Code, Discord, etc. will be identical.
he tried to install already, in another question
https://discord.com/channels/436251713830125568/1328155353220649104
I seconded the Hypervisor setup change with some diagnostic commands in that thread.
I seem to remember having to tweak something in my BIOS to enable virtualization when setting up VM software in the past, but I didn't see any reference to that in the Windows docs.
probably something called x-vt or something
or vt-x