Topic: Why did satoshi develop bitcoin in windows? (Read 1246 times)

They were the first three, HDM - LS - MS
The answer is simple...
We were students...
We were poor...
There was only one computer that had windows.

The first version of BTC is not that complex... it was almost a demo, which had more explanations or comments in the code than code...

Satoshi Nakamoto
From Argentina...

my bet it's simply because windows is good on threading . linux has no waitformultipleobjects() alternative

Actually during 2008 - 2010, I have not known, or discovered a community of Windows Users who were developing open source applications in Windows, that also supported each other. Many among Windows users, it's always the customer goes to the vendor/developer if there are issues.


It will "tend" to run in Windows, but I believe not very smoothly especially considering that it's open source software. Plus it's harder to fix in Windows without the help of the developer.

Do not you overcomplicate things? The whole discussion starts from assumption that linux is cool and windows is for dumb people. Using other system just to pretend you are someone else? It almost smells like an another flame war.


I agree with that. You have everything there, tools (& support) and many potential users. It would not make a sense to develop a software for a limited number of users just because linux is so great. And than of course adding extra effort to port it to windows.
And again - remember that decade ago linux was even less popular then today and the fragmentation is also a problem - even if you had a 'linux users', many of them preferred to use packages instead of building from the source* - so you must prepare your program for several distributions.

* ah, Gentoo

Also with market penetration there are a lot more places to go for friendly help then with a lot of other development. Doing a bit of over generalization but when asking for help when compiling stuff on Windows you get help from online discussions and other people. When asking for help when compiling for Linux you get 'didn't you read the docs??? it's right there on page 308'

Also, with the market penetration Windows stuff just tends to run, with all the flavors of linux out there and the different install options sometimes if you want to give a fully compiled binary it takes more work to make sure it will run it all since you can't be 100% sure what packages were installed, but with Windows you know that every install has certain things.

-Dave

That would be a VERY possible reason why Satoshi decided to build the first implementations of Bitcoin in Windows, IF it was not to do the extra steps to "pretend he's a Windows guy" and hide his real identity. He probably wanted a user-friendly UX/UI and make it more encouraging for ordinary users to run the software. There also was a poker application embedded in the client, no?

From the emails you can tell he was actually using both, gcc and Visual Studio to generate the executables:

This question cannot be answered well with the original author missing.  What can be answered is why you would develop on Windows in 2008 (as apposed to Minix, SCO, Linux, GNU Hurd?). 

Windows has and had:
* The best market penetration.   To get more users of an application you can write it on Windows
* Wide range of development tools and software for development.

Rather than use Microsoft only frameworks, it takes some effort to use portable libraries and frameworks.  These days, Android is the new Windows.

Or he could've just used MinGW to build the 0.1 version, especially if the program layout on the filesystem consisted of bin/, usr/, lib/ folders MinGW programs are packed as (as later Windows versions of Bitcoin Core had always been).

Based on the public things I've read I thought as others have mentioned that Satoshi was a "windows guy", but the release of the emails from Satoshi to Hal Finney tell a different story:



So it looks like Satoshi was actually a "Linux guy" in the end as he mentioned it was easier to make software for Linux, and he was using the gcc debugger.

It seems to me that he was just publishing the software for Windows as it was the more commonly used OS, but he would have preferred to use Linux.

There is possibility he is windows guy. It also makes sense to develop on windows because the world are mostly windows users.

I think this makes the most sense.

In order to make the adoption of the product easier for normal people I would have chosen windows and gui too. Its not like he did sacrifice anything with this decision.

Well, I think satoshi develop bitcoin on windows because he's so familiar with windows, also when it became successful, he never gave it a thought to try to experiment it on another OS, like Linux or something else.

My take on this is that, it does not matter whether it was on Windows or iOS or Ubuntu, Android, GUI, GitHub or even go to space to develop because no one is made out of no where you need to rely on the what some other people have done to create something unique. He might be a window guy but he created something Window might not break and I am not sure he even used windows 10.1 that we have today. He further showed that where people are seeing the problem with limited resources, he saw the opportunity to put his own name in the sands of time which might even outlive a lot of us.

I agree, especially if what you're making is electronic money.  Stick with what you know well because the probability that you'll screw something up on the platform you don't know as well is much higher than the chance that 3 letter agencies are going to mess with your creation (especially back when Bitcoin was 'born').

Once the source code was published (I don't know if that was right from the jump or a little later), it is open to the world for audit/review/porting to other platforms.  It is hugely important to "know what you don't know" and defer to the expertise of others in those areas and/or increase your knowledge and competency in that new area.

As we see from the spectre/meltdown vulnerabilities, there will always be weak points, possible vectors of attack, in any sophisticated system that are essentially outside of your control.  Do the best you can with what is in your control and a development process that favors continuous improvement will serve as a feedback loop driving further refinement.  From what I can discern of Bitcoin's early days, it was pretty good out of the gate, but it's certainly improved in many ways since it's inception.  That will continue.  That's one of the great things about technology, continuous improvement, especially in open source projects.

Best regards,
Ben

Probably to show that it can even run on windows

Bit seriously, probably because a lot of people used windows, specifically those days. So it would be more easy for mass adoption

Agree on you sir, maybe he thinks that Windows is the most suitable for BTC since it's algos are too simple compared with others. I mean i don't find windows that crappy but i believe the simpleness of BTC's algo is what make it unique versus the others. Or maybe satoshi has no choice back in the days but still he has a big success and i think he must be proud of it .

I agree and disagree. I think Satoshi is a composite person, and I agree that Hal is likely one of the components.

I don't know either... I my mind bitcoin works a lot as a distributed PGP's web-of-trust model ... in fact you just need to add "economy model layer" to it to make it works ...

While it's possible, I'm not convinced it's likely due to the different approaches and ideas they seemed to have regarding development.  They seemed to have vastly differing stances on Bitcoin's association with WikiLeaks.  Plus, if they were the same person, they certainly went to a great deal of effort to disguise the fact.  It's sadly probable that Satoshi is dead, though.