Programming in Windows is culturally different than programming in Linux. In Linux most acolytes get their start using the terminal and a simple text editor such as Vim, and are able to pull down almost every tool they need for free with a simple command like “apt-get install.” Windows programmers on the other hand are given tools (usually by Microsoft, and often at a job) which are GUI-centric and hide the command line or totally eschew it. Generally speaking, Windows developers grow attached to their GUI power-apps, such as Visual Studio, and have no idea why they'd ever give them up. Linux developers are instantly infuriated with Windows as most literature tells them their former workflows are incompatible.

I worked in the .NET, Windows world for five years before switching over to Linux. When I made the change, it hit me how dependent on Visual Studio I had become. If a programming language wasn't supported by Visual Studio, I gave it only an academic interest. If a project couldn't be built in Visual Studio, there was a high probability I wouldn't investigate it.

The switch to Linux forced me to see the error of my ways. By getting so comfy in Windows and .NET, I'd actually not just hurt my ability to work in foreign programming environments, but to understand them.

These days I see many people who have the same issue. Maybe they're Java power users who can't, for the life of them, leave Eclipse, or Linux programmers who won't touch Windows with a ten-foot pole.

I however have become a bit of a nomad. Switching from Windows to Linux slowed me down for awhile, but ultimately taught me a methodologies that are universal among operating systems and software projects.

It also inspired these beliefs:

• The Windows console is god awful compared to most Linux terminals or the one in OSX. Copy and paste is particularly atrocious.
  
• The Windows console can do everything you need a terminal to do and should be used regardless.
  
• There are numerous replacement consoles for Windows. In my experience these are buggy and seem to execute programs slower.
  
• IDEs, especially Visual Studio, which is platform dependent, should never be relied on to do something critical like build an app unless you can also perform that action at the command line.
  
• That said, IDEs are still very useful and you should try to support them for larger projects.
  
• If you're writing your own tools, GUIs can sometimes be more useful than command line apps. However the payoff almost never justifies the time it takes.
  
• You don't need an IDE to debug code. However most non-IDE based debuggers are a pain (which is why tests are so great).
  
• JetBrains makes some truly nice cross-platform IDEs.
  
• IDEs slow down experimentation and discovery by forcing you to configure them for every project you work with. That's why simpler text editors, which can be made to view files in a directory in a single step, are so useful. If you want to be able to pull down random projects from GitHub, possibly written in programming languages you've never used, it makes sense to get acquainted with a simple text editor.
  
• Sublime Text is the greatest cross-platform text editor in existence. Other tools to consider are Vim and Emacs, though you will have to spend time learning them. College professors always say that becoming proficient at those two editors will ultimately make you faster than using other tools but I believe this is a myth. I've never witnessed a Vim or Emac power user navigate a code base faster than a Sublime Text user.
  
• The greatest attribute of a text editor is the ability to quickly locate files. In Sublime Text, you can do this by pressing Ctrl + P and entering the name of the file. In JetBrains IDEs hit Ctrl + Shift + N.
  

These days, I feel comfortable on any operating system or code base because I have a set of practices that apply to all of them. It's not the best set for any given project but it gets me most of the way there and practicing it has made me a better programmer.