Well, are you posting from Linux? Running AH on Linux? As I said, it has its uses (mainly in real time systems) but to say you can do more on a linux box than you can do an a windows is just funny. In either case, the thread is about writing code and that should be irrelevant to operating systems. What is relevant, is taking everything else out of the equation to make it easier for someone new to focus on the programming task only. So doing it in windows, a system that he is already familiar with, using tools with a familiar look and feel has to be the easiest way, no?
Telling a new guy to go install Linux, learn vi and use a command line compiler (should he rebuild the kernel a few times while at it?) is just ridiculous. Where is he going to install it? Have you ever made the mistake to try and install Linux on a laptop that came with windows on? 
In my experience (and it is big) when questions like the OPs are answered with "install linux cause it is the best" the people are either clueless or just bragging about their mad command line Linux skillz. A lot of times it is both.
I remember the time when programing was all about problem solving.
If you could accomplish something with shell script you did just that. If you needed C, so it was.
If your solution was for specific platform, you worked on the very same.
Only sales people of large IT companies were arguing which hardware/OS/system was better.
But anyway, the higher level language you start with, the better. Which in many cases is simply pseudo code.
