[Pdx-pm] Perl Development on Windows

[DHMedley at aol.com]

Please forgive the late response, I only get the digest ....

The biggest problem with development on Windows is that the OS only has a single screen.   Yes, you can splurge a couple of hundred scarce dollars on a dual-head video card and another monitor, but who has room for two screens on a desk ?

So first recommendation is a pager of some sort, and Microsoft does provide one at:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/DeskmanPowertoySetup.exe

which provides 4 desktops on a single monitor.   I have used it for years on a laptop.  There is no official support, so you can't call with questions, as Microsoft (wisely) doesn't want the 100 millionth user whining about their "lost work" which in the *NIX community earns them sneers or worse.

Second, if you are as wedded to *NIX as the other responders were, just buy a copy of Virtual PC and load any particular flavor of *NIX you are comfortable with.  I can vouch for Slackware 10, Novell Linux Desktop ( preview ), and Gentoo working quite well with it.  You have to use either 16 bit or 32 bit video -- there is no 24.

A much more extensive list of tests is at:

http://vpc.visualwin.com/

I have run it with less than half-a-gig of RAM and an AMD Barton/Intel Prescott processor, but I would call these the comfort minimums.

Lastly, consider this a quite hearty recommendation of ActiveState Komodo -- a user since version 2.0 ( now 3.1 ).
I use both the Linux and Windows versions extensively.

Dennis H. Medley
Cymberlaen Software