Nicolas Robidoux

Tweaked Ubuntu goodness.

Mint = Ubuntu with some initial release kinks untwisted from the get go (Mint stands on the shoulders of a giant standing on the shoulders of a giant...) + a mindblowingly responsive chat/forum community (plus Ubuntu's own, not to mention Debian's) + a few less things to install for my non-programming activities (and those of my family) + I like their sense of aesthetics.

Not necessarily better than the parent Ubuntu but, at the very least, a very likeable and useable *buntu flavor.

(As to what "real developers" use, I have no idea.)

P.S. LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) has been somewhat of a disappointment in the reliability department (although it definitely is snappy). In addition, my suggestion that (vanilla, not LMDE) Mint is more bug free than Ubuntu needs to be tempered: Out of the box, maybe; over time, not sure. In particular, it appears to me that Mint's stability degrades more than Ubuntu's as updates pile up.

P.S.II Mint 11 runs reasonably cleanly so far, and is noticeably snappier than updated Mint 9. However, it appears that the use of an altogether different desktop than the Ubuntu parent (Classic Gnome VS Unity) has led to a surprising number of desktop bugs.

Brutally steep learning curve.

Command line let me count the ways I can shoot myself in the foot. And head.

And there too.

Is the idea to have a version system which can't be used if you're an incompetent developer? Are "they" just trying to keep programmers out?

Darwinian.

And then you make it over the hump and "How did I manage to live without this?"

Axiom is my primary Computer Algebra System (CAS = symbolic manipulator) for three reasons:

The Axiom programming language is elegant and powerful, and gives a great deal of control on what's being done and how.

Axiom runs fast.

Axiom has carefully implemented algorithms.

Granted, Axiom is less "feature rich" than competitors (Mathematica, Maple, Maxima). Given that the additional features found in other CAS are not always bug-free, I'm OK with a smaller feature set.

Not everyone's cup of tea for sure but deserving of a place in the arsenal of people who can code.

P.S. Axiom has a Sage (www.ohloh.net/p/sage) interface:
http://www.sagemath.org/doc/reference/sage/interfaces/axiom.html.

(Disclaimer: On the basis of minor contributions made many many years ago, I am listed as a contributor.)