In article <9ftjeb$aiv$1 at mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk>, <zerohourx at yahoo.com> wrote:
>4. What operating system (OS) would researchers "prefer" to use their
>software tools on: Unix/Linux, Mac, or Windows?
I can say a bit about this. I distribute programs which can run
on all three platforms. Registrations lately have run about
50% Windows, 40% Mac, 10% Unix (mix of Linux, various Sun OSes,
and Alphas). However, people who actually write back and ask
questions about the software are more weighted to the Mac and
Unix users. I suspect many of the Windows users download the
programs, find they are not GUI, and discard them, but I can't
know for sure.
It varies hugely from program to program, though; my labmate
also distributes programs, but in a slightly different subfield,
and sees a lot more Mac users than I do.
I personally would prefer a Unix program, especially one written
generically enough that I could, if necessary, try to get it
running in Mac OSX or in a DOS window. But I'm a Unix geek from
way back.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner at genetics.washington.edu
---
