"It is also likely to be used by engineers, since UNIX is still popular in that field and they often have to write their own applications."
... you DO understand that 99% of the engineers in the world don't write their own programs ?
... are you talking about people with reseach grants, or in education who get to spend other people's time and money, or the real world ?
I'm talking about people who historically work with Big Iron, or smaller Sun or SGI systems -- in UNIX. To send an engineer into the wild with no UNIX training is not a good idea.