If there’s any doubt that developers have moved to Mac OS X . . . .

A Kickstarter project that caused buzz amongst developers is Light Table, a development IDE that aims to fundamentally shift how we build software. As of right now, it has 5,726 backers (including me) and pledges of $256,145 (the project’s lead, Chris Granger, was seeking $200,000). Paul Graham’s YCombinator noticed the project and included it in its 2012 summer program. If you develop software, you should follow those links, watch the videos, and find out more.

Granger just sent a survey to his backers that said:

We’re trying to get a sense of what OS’s people are going to want to use light table on so we can focus on the most important ones first. Mind filling in this survey? It’s only one question 🙂

That single question was: Which operating systems would [you] use Light Table on?

You could obviously vote for more than one operating system, and the results show that many did. Limitations of the survey software allowed only some of the backers to vote; I didn’t click the link in time to have my say. I got to see the results, though, which are:

  1. OS X Lion: 60.05% (1201 votes)
  2. Windows: 39.25% (785 votes)
  3. Ubuntu: 33.65% (673 votes)
  4. Linux (other than Ubuntu): 16.65% (333 votes)
  5. OS X Snow Leopard: 13.45% (269 votes)

Combining different flavors of the same OS accentuate the migration:

  1. OS X: 73.5%
  2. Linux: 50.3%
  3. Windows: 39.25%

So, an IDE whose goal is to revolutionize software development interests almost twice as many Mac OS X developers as Windows developers. I find that noteworthy and telling.

Which operating systems would use Light Table on?

 

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