Readers' Choice Awards

Best Programming Language

Carlie Fairchild — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 19:23:52 +0000

Surprise—Python wins again!

Here's the breakdown (the contenders listed below were nominated by LJ readers via Twitter):

Python: 31%
C: 20%
C++: 14%
Other: 9%
Java: 8%
Perl: 7%
JavaScript: 4%
PHP: 3%
Ruby: 3%

Python wins Best Programming Language again this year in Linux Journal's annual Readers' Choice Awards. It's easy to use, powerful and versatile with a really large and active community. Having that supportive community ensures that developers of all skill levels easily can find the support and documentation they require, which feeds Python's popularity. It certainly helps that Python has something like a corporate sponsor. Python is recognized as an official language at Google, running on many of its internal systems and showing up in many Google APIs. In fact, Google's developer website offers free Python classes, videos and exercises.

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Best Content Management System

Carlie Fairchild — Fri, 30 Mar 2018 15:25:19 +0000

by Carlie Fairchild

WordPress is the Content Management System winner in the 2018 Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards.

Note that the contenders were nominated by readers via Twitter. Here's the breakdown:

WordPress: 42%
Drupal: 23%
Other: 15%
Joomla: 10%
Concrete5: 4%
Grav: 3%
ModX: 3%

Unless you've been living under a rock, you most certainly have heard of WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms around that also happens to be 100% open source. WordPress powers 27% of the web from personal to corporate to even government sites (Whitehouse.gov for one).

In a 2008 interview, Linux Journal's Katherine Druckman asked WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, "You frequently have reiterated your commitment to open-source ideals and GPL licensing. How has this commitment factored into the development of your company, Automattic? How do you use open-source technology to achieve your goals?"

Mullenweg responded:

When I set out to create Automattic, it was an interesting dilemma—in our society, it seemed the best way to have an impact on the world was working within a for-profit framework, but at the same time, I'd seen multiple examples of "open-source companies" suffocating the communities they grew from.

I came across an interesting hack though—by keeping WordPress.org a separate entity from Automattic and basing our business entirely on GPL code, you create a balance that aligns the fiduciary responsibilities of the corporation with the interests of the community at large. In the long term—10, 20 years from now—it still will be in the best interest of Automattic to support the broader community as much as possible, because its own business succeeds when they do.

I didn't want WordPress to be a one-company project, so by separating out the nonprofit and for-profit sides and making some explicit decisions about businesses Automattic would never enter, we created a lot of room for other companies to embrace, support and build on top of WordPress. Hopefully, we also set a good example of how to contribute back to the community.

It was the best way I could think of to ensure that the principles I believe in would endure beyond my personal involvement or control of either organization. (But I still look both ways when crossing the street.)

Congratulations to WordPress for being Linux Journal's Readers' Choice.

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Best Desktop Environment

Carlie Fairchild — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 19:42:38 +0000

by Carlie Fairchild

Read on to see how the desktop environment contenders fared in this week's Readers' Choice Awards category.

Here's the breakdown (the contenders below were nominated by readers via Twitter):

KDE: 35%
GNOME: 20%
Xfce: 15%
Cinnamon: 11%
MATE: 7%
Other: 7%
Unity: 3%
LXQt: 1%

Thanks to its stability, performance, feature set and a loyal following, the K Desktop Environment (KDE) won Best Desktop Environment in this year's Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards.

Linux Journal reader Larry Coombes says his vote was for KDE for a mass of reasons, including:

1) Totally configurable, which is ESSENTIAL for new users who want their Linux desktop configured to emulate the exact rendering of Windows (XP or 7) that they have worked on forever. Also, essential for when the new user turns to me and says, "Can Linux do XYZ?? Can I make it so...", with KDE, the answer is always "Yes", which is much better than explaining limitations of a desktop environment and trying to train someone, because then you hit "But I could always do this in Windows...".

2) I have tried other desktop environments, and none of them come close to KDE's keyboard-shortcut support, which is ESSENTIAL to my business. I teach young children, and I am jumping from app to app, file to file in chaos. With KDE, I can minimize touchpad operation and use a laptop as a proper, portable device. I have around 50 keyboard shortcuts to move my work forward—and to be able to use in taxis and trains!

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Best Laptop

Jill Franklin — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:11:28 +0000

by Jill Franklin

What's the favorite LJ reader laptop?

The top three winners are:

Lenovo: 32%
Dell: 25%
System76: 11%

The ThinkPad began life at IBM, but in 2005, it was purchased by Lenovo along with the rest of IBM's PC business. Lenovo evolved the line, and today the company is well known as a geek favorite. Lenovo's ThinkPads are quiet, fast and arguably have one of the best keyboards (fighting words!). Linux Journal readers say Lenovo's Linux support is excellent, leaving many to ponder why the company doesn't ship laptops with Linux installed.

Who to watch for: System76, a small shop out of Denver, Colorado, is a Linux community favorite, coming in a very respectable third place in our poll among some heavyweight vendors. System76 is first and foremost a Linux shop, and as a result, its laptops ship with Linux pre-installed. In fact, according to Wikipedia, "The number 76 in the company name alludes to the year 1776, the year in which the American Revolution took place. The company founders hope likewise to ignite an open source revolution, ultimately leading to a situation in which consumers do not rely primarily on proprietary software."

Here's a graph of the full list (note: the contenders were nominated by LJ readers via Twitter):

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Best Editor

Jill Franklin — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 16:24:06 +0000

by Jill Franklin

Read on to see which editor is the LJ reader favorite.

Here's the breakdown (all editors listed below were nominated by readers):

Vim: 35%
GNU Emacs: 19%
Sublime Text: 10%
Atom: 8%
nano: 6%
Geany: 5%
Gedit: 4%
Kate: 4%
KWrite: 1%
Other: 7%

Readers' Choice winner Vim is an extremely powerful editor with a user interface based on Bill Joy's 40-plus-year-old vi, but with many improved-upon features including extensive customization with key mappings and plugins. Linux Journal reader David Harrison points out another great thing about Vim "is that it's basically everywhere. It's available on every major platform."

The very features that make Vim so versatile also have been known to intimidate beginners. Perhaps that's why Linux Journal has featured nearly 100 articles on Vim so far. Readers generally agree though, any learning curve is worth the effort, and again this year, they award Vim the Best Editor title.

Richard Stallman's GNU Emacs comes in a respectable second place in this year's Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards Best Editor category. Emacs is often referred to as "the most powerful editor ever made". Interesting pop culture trivia: Emacs was featured in the movie Tron: Legacy.

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Best Linux Distribution

Jill Franklin — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 17:55:44 +0000

by Jill Franklin

See which distro won in the kick-off of 2018's Readers' Choice Awards.

This year we're breaking up our Readers' Choice Awards by category, so check back weekly for a new poll on the site. We started things off with Best Linux Distribution, and nearly 10,000 readers voted. The winner was Debian, with many commenting "As for servers, Debian is still the best" or similar.

One to watch that is rising in the polls is Manjaro, which is independently based on the Arch Linux. Manjaro is a favorite for Linux newcomers and is known for its user-friendliness and accessibility.

And, now for the top three LJ winners:

Debian
openSUSE
Fedora

Here's a graph of the breakdown:

Remember, be sure to check the site weekly for the next poll!

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