I switched to Windows hoping to use the WSL - looks great for the most part, but there are still lots of blocking bugs. Ruby and Git install, but not OpenSSL, which makes Rails development difficult. Lots of niggles here and there, basically.

Should be great when it comes out of beta, though - a good terminal and we'll be all set.

If you haven't tried ConEmu [0], it's pretty awesome. I use it with the Git Bash that comes with the full windows git installer and it Just Works for most of my terminal needs. Haven't tried it with WSL but it can most likely be rigged up.

[0] https://conemu.github.io/

I use conemu with WSL... it's the best one available for Windows, but it still pales in comparison to the default macOS terminal, and even the one that ships with Elementary. The customziation, tabs, layout, fonts all work fine but seem a bit bolted on.

I feel the need to point out that what "ships" with elementaryOS is basically meaningless. You can install what you want, easily, and the default configuration is a recommendation. Welcome to Linux-land. https://www.distrowatch.com/

Oh, absolutely, but I'm actually saying the terminal that ships with Elementary is superb. The macOS stock terminal is also really good. But the Windows stock terminal is downright horrible, Powershell is slightly better, but not Unixy, and ConEmu is so-so, but better than the other Windows options.

isn't it the same on any OS? :-/

you can install what you want on macOS and you can install what you want on Windows. Both have custom terminal apps

No, it isn't. Debian packages, Ubuntu packages, etc. are tested together as a group and you can expect that they integrate properly. The same cannot be said for third-party OSX .apps. They're more like adding another repo to your sources.list. Hell, OSX won't even let you uninstall Terminal.app.

I'm using https://github.com/mintty/wsltty as a terminal for WSL, because it feels the closest to a Linux terminal for me. Give it a go.

If Rails is his sticking point, then there's no point in paying for something when you can have it for free.

Well there's no indication that he's against paying, just that he looked for and failed to find a viable OSX alternative.

It's not listed in his requirements and Win10 may satisfy him.

There are lots of free things in life that have an inferior free alternative or only free alternatives and this may be one of them.

Well, it was you who said he should pay for Windows if Rails was his sticking point.

And I said you don't need to pay for anything if you want to do Rails programming. In fact, here, the "inferior alternative" for this task may be the proprietary one.

Another thing would be using his computer for gaming. In that case, I wouldn't object, of course.