Why did satoshi develop bitcoin in windows?

[bebenduk]

In my opinion
This sounds reasonable to me. Back in the Flintstones, I used Windows servers for years because Windows was used in the lab media where I was trained and also by my first ICT company. My suggestion is that you can know it first

[Biomech]

I think y'all are reading too much into this.

Back in '09, 'Nix was not really that accessible or usable to the average person. If you were very familiar with Windows, like I was, 'Nix was kind of incomprehensible without a sharp learning curve. And unlike today, where Ubuntu and Mint are extremely widespread, there was the definite problem of the Linux community.

It was an 'old boys club' to the extreme. Newbie bashing on here is NOTHING compared to what it was in the late 20th and first years of the 21st century in the Linux community! Those people had an axe to grind, and just couldn't possibly get it sharp enough. I switched to Linux in '12, and haven't regretted it. But the community has changed.

The biggest roadblock to the general adoption of Linux in the early days (I'm talking 91 to about 2010) was the linux community itself. They openly viewed themselves as superior beings, and damn you if you wanted to break in! Then they whined about people using Windows when there was an oh-so-superior option. That it actually IS superior in a lot of ways was not a mitigating factor. Whether you love or hate Ubuntu, Canonical went a LONG WAY in changing that perception, and now 'Nix is gaining a lot of traction. It still has a lot sharper learning curve than Windows, but past that, I'd consider them about equal from the user perspective. But Windows is a LOT more friendly to a newbie, still, than any flavor of Nix.

Now as to Satoshi, first off, he/they were NOT outstanding coders. The later development team described the original code as "spaghetti code" in several instances. The brilliance of Bitcoin cannot really be understated, but it's brilliance is in concept, not the initial programming. If I were to field a guess, I'd leave out all the conspiracy theories (though I like some of them ) and just say it simple: He was familiar with Windows. Unix was still pretty esoteric back then.

[cloud.runner]

Because satoshi is actually Elon Musk. If you read books about him, he is a guy who programs in Windows and good at C++.

[Biomech]

Because satoshi is actually Elon Musk. If you read books about him, he is a guy who programs in Windows and good at C++.

He's also in bed with anyone who appears to have authority. I find this highly unlikely.

Now maybe Peter Thiel...

[NITCoinOfficial]

Maybe it was important for it to be available to a wide range of users. If it was only for Linux, it would have been exclusive to the tech-savvy people. Everyone can run Windows, so everyone could use Bitcoin. Nothing difficult - click, run, gain. This is what made the breakthrough, the ease of use. Remember that when you chose the next ICO or build your own coin - the easier your product is for people to use, the more likely to succeed it is.

[digaran]

Properly secured Windows (except Windows10) computer is unbreakable. Even for NSA. Why? Because a 0-day in network stack or network card drivers is only way to hack it. Manually install all security patches. Disable all auto updates. Disable unnecessary services and configure firewall to reduce attack surface. It is it. I challenged to hack my Windows 7 or Windows XP machine to steal all my coins back then. Nobody succeeded. In such case the NSA/CIA/FBI will try to get physical access to machine to install malware or read disk contents.

It is ridiculous how paranoid some Windows haters are. They obviously never been hackers themselves and also dont know how police and spy agencies do things.

More notable thing that probably nobody noticed is that Satoshi's hard drive was using NTFS compression, most likely on whole partition. This is very untypical to have NTFS compression enabled on whole partition upon manual formatting.

Okay. I am interested in about windows as unhackable as you said.... but why except Windows 10? it's still windows... forgive my ignorance. I just want to know so that I can buy better OS in the future.

Windows 10 is a spyware, XP is the best version of Windows. you can try https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop for free.

[andrew1carlssin]

Those little details only rise my suspicious that the dramatis personae "Satoshi Nakamoto" between 2008/2013 was in fact Hal Finney ...

[DooMAD]

Those little details only rise my suspicious that the dramatis personae "Satoshi Nakamoto" between 2008/2013 was in fact Hal Finney ...

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.

[andrew1carlssin]

Those little details only rise my suspicious that the dramatis personae "Satoshi Nakamoto" between 2008/2013 was in fact Hal Finney ...

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 [Suspicious link removed]j.com/public/resources/documents/finneynakamotoemails.pdf]a great deal of effort[/url] to disguise the fact.  It's sadly probable that Satoshi is dead, though.

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 ...

[Biomech]

Those little details only rise my suspicious that the dramatis personae "Satoshi Nakamoto" between 2008/2013 was in fact Hal Finney ...

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

[RoooooR]

He probably only had experience programming in windows and with GUIs. Bitcoin 0.1.0 was a Windows only, GUI only application.

This sounds plausible to me. Back in the Flintstones age, I used Windows servers for years because Windows was used in the medialab where I trained as well as by my first ICT employer. Sometimes it’s more practical to use a crappy platform you know than a better one which you’re previously unfamiliar with

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 .

[nokati]

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

[BTRIC]

He probably only had experience programming in windows and with GUIs. Bitcoin 0.1.0 was a Windows only, GUI only application.

This sounds plausible to me. Back in the Flintstones age, I used Windows servers for years because Windows was used in the medialab where I trained as well as by my first ICT employer. Sometimes it’s more practical to use a crappy platform you know than a better one which you’re previously unfamiliar with

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

[audaciousbeing]

You are trying to create a decentralized, censorship resistant, open source form of money, and you build it on top of a closed source operating system which is known for it's ties with three letter agency, hidden exploits, and all sorts of these bad things.

I find it weird that he would develop on windows. As far as I know, his first release was for windows only, and from what I've read, some code analysts claimed that he was a windows guy.

What is your take on this?

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.

[seven2smoke1]

You are trying to create a decentralized, censorship resistant, open source form of money, and you build it on top of a closed source operating system which is known for it's ties with three letter agency, hidden exploits, and all sorts of these bad things.

I find it weird that he would develop on windows. As far as I know, his first release was for windows only, and from what I've read, some code analysts claimed that he was a windows guy.

What is your take on this?

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.

[without]

Maybe he wanted to create Bitcoin in a way that soon after its creation people could use it. Rather than being somewhat restricted those niches that only use Linux. His goal has always been to take his product to the common people and ordinary people like GUI interface.

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.

[mountrock]

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

[nullama]

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:

Everything is always harder to build on Windows than Linux

The gcc debug version is attached.
gdb is easier to use than you'd think. gdb.exe is the only file. You run
gdb bitcoin.exe
then type "run"

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.

[NotATether]

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:

Everything is always harder to build on Windows than Linux

The gcc debug version is attached.
gdb is easier to use than you'd think. gdb.exe is the only file. You run
gdb bitcoin.exe
then type "run"

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.

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).

[sdp]

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.