I would only deploy and run my code in Linux, but with VirtualBox I get all the benefits of Windows for applications (my favorite editor, mail client, Excel, mp3 player, IM client, a hundred other things) and a local Linux VM that works the same as my production environment. It's the best of both worlds. And no compromises like Cygwin (ugh) or the frustrating almost-but-not-quite Unix nature of OSX.
Woa, mail client. I've always hated the lack of good mail clients on Windows, may I ask which client you think is so good that you're willing to start VirtualBox for it? Thanks :-)
I meant I use VirtualBox only for my development environment and everything else is on the host OS.
Honestly nothing has been better than Outlook if the mail is hosted on an Exchange server. These days I use Outlook 2013 with an Outlook365 backend (their hosted service, it's what my employer uses, outside of my control) and it's not great but I don't like web-based clients and I don't know of a better desktop client.
