Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Express, VS 2005 Beta 541
An anonymous reader writes "At the TechEd Europe keynote today, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. With it, they also released a set of five 'Express Editions' of Visual Studio. These currently free applications offer a student and hobbyist-oriented version of Visual Studio, and are available in C#, C++, VB, Web Developer, and SQL flavors. Each download weighs in at right around 50MB and features tools, documentation, and starter kits. There's been multiple posts and more information on this announcement over at MSDN Blogs, too." Update: 06/29 13:57 GMT by S : A clarification from the Express FAQ: Although the Beta Express products are currently free to download: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year."
That's cool (Score:2)
Re:That's cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's cool (Score:2, Informative)
Re:That's cool (Score:4, Insightful)
It's good to see Microsoft trying to get on board with at least the spirit of Open Source.
Except that it's not Open Source, just free (as in price) software. Sure to raise some hackles around here.
Re:That's cool (Score:4, Informative)
a. It's BETA, meaning not done and unsupported, not free
b. "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year. For the time being, we can tell you that the Express Editions will be low-cost and will continue to be easy to acquire."
c. as previously stated, there is no permission for distributing apps built with it
Re:That's cool (Score:4, Insightful)
The more you get people to use "windows only" solutions the better microsoft feels.
They know it is all about the developers and want to lock them down as hard and as fast they can.
Hello how about Evolution for Windows to compete with Outlook?
Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Informative)
where you can use the java server faces (JSF)framework to nicely draw your work.
RAD? (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't say it has many advantages in terms of real system development, and I wouldn't want to list any of the disadvantages.
VB does indeed have a fairly nice UI drawing tool, and you can simply link many forms together, some would say you can even program with it!
Don't forget: Devleopers developers developers developers, etc
Re:RAD? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you know anything about
C# tends to be less verbose and more comfy for java developers. VB
I'd really like to see c/java coders get off their high horse about how "vb isn't a real language". It's just not true anymore
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
I will say I have no interest in
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
All the more reason to check out
Say what you will about MS, they know how to cater to developers - to lure them over to the "Dark Side."
Re:You're lucky (Score:3, Informative)
I'd love to use namespaces as they were intended, but because of the debugger problem I just use static members
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
Xentax
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a link from O'Reilly on how to write an FTP Client in
http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2004/05/10 / ft pdotnet.htm
The documentation is profuse, clear, and comprehensive. There are very few things that don't exist that probably should when you go looking for them, but e
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Particularly for .NET development, it is missing many features that have been standard in Java IDEs such as JBuilder or Eclipse for some time. For example the ability to debug two apps at once (for client / server etc.), or to rename a class and all references to it throughout a file. Not to mention it's biggest flaw - DevStudio is intractably bound to developing apps that run with MS technology.
But even for Windows work, by far and away the most annoying 'feature' of DevStudio is the retarded context sensitive help. I've lost count of the number of times that I've hit F1 over something in a Win32 C++ project to be taken to a help page for Windows CE. I'm not sure what context it seems to be using, but it has nothing to do with what I'm doing.
Still, it's clear from these 'express' editions that MS is worried by the number of free alternative IDEs that are springing up - in particular Eclipse. After all, if students learn to programme using Eclipse, it means MS is completely frozen out the picture. After all Eclipse is primarily for developing Java apps (bad for .NET) and is cross-platform (bad for Windows). A few years down the line those students will be driving the market and a huge slice of potential MS revenue flies out the window.
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. I'm currently (as in I've alt-tabbed over from it to post this) using it to develop for PS2, using the SN Systems gcc-based toolchain and makefiles. It is trivial to use plug-in compilers, debuggers etc. with VS6 and VS.Net. May not be trivial to write them or interface them, but I didn't get the impression that that was what you meant...
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
Visual Basic is a quick-fix language, but left in the hand of an inexpert developer can lead to a buggy unsupportable mess (I have had clean up plenty of such messes). Something like Object Pascal would have been far better, with good type safety, yet high speed, and with true object orientation, not the crippled version of VB6.
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
Is present in Visual C++, and has been for a while.
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
The drag-and-drop pixel-positioning of Visual Studio form design? OK, so you can in principle do better, but most don't.
"Cross Platform Support" - Uh, yes, if you are talking about non-x86 support. Of course it doesn't run on non-Windows platforms. I don't think that makes much sense to create a Windows dev environment that RUNS ON OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS!!!
(no need to shout!) Why not? There are Windows CE development environments that run on Windows
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
It can, and I do mean every case. The whole Smalltalk environment is a continuous series of executing processes, of which your 'application' is just one.
You guys need to give up looking down your noses at anyone who uses anything but (LISP/Smalltalk/insert other escoteric language here.)
I don't look down at other languages - in fact, I don't do Smalltalk development these days.
There is a reason all those languag
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
What I meant was that the IDE should be open for casual developers to extend quickly and easily in the language they normal work in. It would have been great if, when VS was first introduced, you could easily add extensions to it in Visual Basic. Suppose you wanted to add an Edit menu item that linked to code to, for example, reformat your source. In the Smalltalk system, this
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
From my experience, this is the most commonly sited perk of VB. It's something that you've been able to do for darn near any language for a long time- GUI designers really aren't new, and VB doesn't even have the best one available.
The frequency that I see people cite the GUI designer as the major benefit to VB makes me think that most folks- especially the types of people on
I used to be a VB "guru". Now I do Delphi. (Score:3, Informative)
I started programming way before Windows and used to do only basic. When Visual Basic came, it was awesome. I ended up doing even some pretty big projects with VB3. You didn't even notice that it was "only" made with basic as I knew how to write fast code. Learned all the ugly tricks and invented a few more while I was at it.
Problems started when Microsoft released VB4. The changes were so big (vbx->ocx, 16bit->32bit) that I realy couldn't compile my software any more. One of our employees went throu
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Informative)
I like it because ADO and VbScript (ASP) allow me to create business applications quickly and reliably. But I hate it because I spend a lot of time reimpl
Most important question: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope, this is NOT a troll; the earlier versions of Microsoft Developer Studio didn't run under Linux, at least nut under Wine.
Since I've abandoned Windows, but must still develop software for it, I am really curious to know if this WILL run under Linux/Wine.
Re:Most important question: (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Most important question: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Most important question: (Score:3, Interesting)
|>oug
Re:Most important question: (Score:4, Interesting)
Error:
A problem has been encountered while loading the setup
components. Cancelling setup.
Re:Most important question: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the old DOS days (Score:3, Interesting)
Free during beta, pricing for release TBA (Score:5, Informative)
Q: "Are the Express Edition products free?"
A: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year. For the time being, we can tell you that the Express Editions will be low-cost and will continue to be easy to acquire."
Can you make a commercial product? (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone should just download Eclipse and MinGW instead. If these aren't up to snuff then fix the problem - you're a software developer after all....
Re:Can you make a commercial product? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can you make a commercial product? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who only wanted to develop in C++ would always be interested in Visual C++ Standard. "Why do I care about Visual Basic or Visual J#?" they would ask.
But then inevitably the question would arise whether the Visual C++ Standard license allowed you to write commercial software and for some reason the answer was never very clear. Most people thought the answer was no (see Google Groups), but MS's website never managed to include that most frequently asked question in its FAQ, despite year after year of people asking the question.
I notice now that the new C++ Express Edition doesn't include MFC or ATL, which are what most people doing commercial C++ for Windows would be using, but it does make a big deal about how you can write
It's a bit puzzling why MS doesn't just make the best possible development tools, including everything (MFC, ATL,
Reducing the cost of VS Pro + MSDN from thousands to zero would almost certainly increase the quantity and variety of commercial-quality apps for Windows, much of it free, making it harder for people to abandon the platform.
They've previously commented that they don't want to do that because it would destroy the 3rd party dev tools market for Windows, but given their history, that explanation seems laughable.
It can't be that they're trying to protect their Office apps from free competitors, because those are so huge that the resources needed by any challenger dwarf the cost of a few copies of VS Pro.
Maybe they're trying to protect the idea of commercial software in general, or trying to lock developers into the platform by getting them to commit money to it, or just trying to make short run money by selling tools, but those seem like pretty shaky theories.
Anybody know?
Re:Can you make a commercial product? (Score:4, Informative)
Not directly...? (Score:3, Insightful)
For c++ apps, anyway. Or have I missed something?
For great free, open source IDEs I recommend... (Score:4, Informative)
As an added bonus, both are cross-platform. ;-)
Re:For great free, open source IDEs I recommend... (Score:3, Informative)
I know we are all about open source here, but honestly.. this has very little to do with Microsoft launching Visual Studio Express. Maybe you should mention how you can code C# in Eclipse [improve-technologies.com]. And also mention sharpdevelop [icsharpcode.net] or monodevelop [monodevelop.com]. NetBeans, isn't really useful for
For .NET development... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For great free, open source IDEs I recommend... (Score:3, Informative)
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/downloa
And in the case of Eclipse, the debugger *is* bundled, just not the java runtime or compiler.
Great! (Score:3, Funny)
A smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft are attempting to lock students in, probably even before they hit tertiary education.
Most of the big distros come with good development tools these days. Still I bet Microsoft's tight integration is going to present a new challenge to the open source community.
Re:Visual Studio == Free (Score:3, Interesting)
I go to PSU. For a while students got a number of pieces of software (VS.NET, WinXP, Office, FrontPage, ec.) for free. I realize that our technology services fee was probably a bit higher because of it (and if not something else was), but on the other hand, not *that* many students got them, so the price to PSU was much less than just 40,000 * (educational price). Thus other students were significantly subsidizing my software cost.
And in turn I help to subsidize their athletic programs
How is Whidbey's C++ IntelliSense? (Score:2)
Smart move (Score:2)
Re:Smart move (Score:2)
I don't really see that as an issue. If you're a professional developer, you're going to want the best IDE for whatever you're doing. A rational craftsman in any field is not going to skimp on his tools.
Granted, I'm not saying Visual Studio is ideal for every project. I almost certainly wouldn't use it for a Java project, for example. However, in some cases, I believe VS would be the right tool for the job, and well worth its cost in t
Quotes in wrong place (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this false logic? (Score:3, Interesting)
Express Projects not compatible with VS2003 Projec (Score:5, Informative)
Quote: "When you open a Visual Studio
So here starts the next layer of conversion hell!
Re:Express Projects not compatible with VS2003 Pro (Score:3)
Which means that I will have to carry on lugging the laptop around.
It also means that if you have a large development team (especially with people spread out geographically) that any updates now have to be synchronised across all users to ensure no loss in working time.
And when it comes down to it, it is unacceptable. It's an XML file! They could at least make a schema to describe a basic project and exte
Passport required .. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Passport required .. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have loved to at least give it a try, but it requires you to log in using Microsoft Passport! Bad idea! I think many people are not willing to sign up for Passport - even for goodies like this...
Just make a dummy Hotmail [hotmail.com] account. It's virtually like downloading a program from other sites that require signing up. Remember, you're an 88-year old accountant from Zimbabwe, with name Aljsfdklsfe LKSJEFLKejf, and password asdf.
Re:Passport required .. (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft: What the.. this African accountant is downloading the same package from 15000 different IPs???
Re:Passport required .. (Score:3, Funny)
!@$!!!
Because if you use Passport, then M$ will track you all over teh internet!! They will install a new BIOS and sniff your packets until they manipulate you into usign C# and Longhorn and fucking the dead corpose of Linux while you sing the Hymn to Gates! THEY HAVE THAT POWER! And only you can prevent it, by not signing up at hotmail!@$!
license (Score:3, Insightful)
Will this work with the Nokia Series 60 SDK? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been wanting to try out Nokia's free (GCC-based) SDK for Series 60 Symbian platforms, but it requires Visual Studio, which I'm not prepared to buy.
There was a website out there somewhere that explained how to set up the SDK on a Linux system, but it was quite a hassle. And the emulator (which is necessary for debugging) didn't run under Linux anyway.
Although I'd be disappointed to boot Windows once more after having used Linux exclusively for some time now, I'd really like to do some serious Series 60 development.
Perhaps it will soon be possible to combine Nokia's SDK with both ReactOS and this free Visual Studio version. At least I'd still be working on a mostly open-source development platform, then!
By the way, if anybody can give me some pointers on setting up the Nokia SDK without having to rely on Visual Studio (and if possible without having to use any Microsoft software) while still being able to use a debugger, then please let me know, even though this is blatently off-topic.
Not Sure about free (Score:5, Informative)
# Are the Express Edition products free?
We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year. For the time being, we can tell you that the Express Editions will be low-cost and will continue to be easy to acquire.
# When will the Express products, and the rest of the Visual Studio 2005 product line, be officially released?
The Visual Studio 2005 family of products will likely be released in the first half of 2005. Microsoft will continue to release Community Technology Previews (CTPs) and beta releases of the Visual Studio 2005 family of products until then.
Important to note... (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting to see SQL Server Express 2005. As it's based on the Yukon engine, that it something I'll be downloading and playing with. I have no idea what edition of SQL Server this would replace, possibly Developer in the long run? It's mentioned that it's installed in a full VS 2005 install...
Adjectives... (Score:2)
Visual Studio Express Edition
Windows XP Starter Addition
Windows Millenium Edition
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
Windows NT 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
SQL Server Developer Edition
SQL Server Enterprise Edition
Or you can use this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Free [icsharpcode.net]
MFC not included - again (Score:2)
Although maybe we'll start seeing more applications that don't use MFC in future. That would be nice.
Anyone know of a free MFC re-implementation?
Re:MFC not included - again (Score:5, Insightful)
Use wxWidgets [wxwindows.org], or some other framework instead. For fun, why not try something like ClanLib... [clanlib.org]
MFC is godawful. Once you've tried a few of the other frameworks that allow you to write cross-platform GUI code for Windows, I doubt you'll disagree with me
Not "free" (Score:3, Interesting)
A Move in the Right Direction (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that only the Express Betas are free - the final products will be a low-cost alternative, I suppose, for the hobbyist or beginning programmer.
What I would love to see is a return to the days when a development environment was automatically included with a system (like QBASIC was with DOS.) I think a lot of young programmers would get a good start if some bundled, easy-to-use development tools were waiting for them on install (Like C# Express right next to WordPad in the Accessories folder.)
It's sort of amusing that as Microsoft continually "expands" the concept of what qualifies as an OS (Web Browser, Media Player) they've removed another element that used to be considered primary and indispensable.
Re:A Move in the Right Direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't we all; but you can't have it both ways. Microsoft were spanked for bundling IE, and we cheered. Don't you think they'd be spanked even harder for bundling VS?
- Oisin
A + ? = Profit (Score:3, Funny)
Even the data source control names are in beta I guess.
Maybe they are trying to find an answer to XCode (Score:4, Interesting)
However, you can release commercial code with XCode if you so desire. Although it doesn't have BASIC or C#, it does have support for Java, applescript, and more.
Feh, I still think I will stick with XCode.
How are these different from... (Score:3, Informative)
... the "Standard" editions of VS.NET 2003? You can currently buy these cut-down versions of Visual Studio that only support C# [microsoft.com], VB.NET [microsoft.com], "J# [microsoft.com]" (whatever nightmare spawn of Java that is), or C++ [microsoft.com] for about $100 each. I imagine that when these "Express" products leave beta we'll see them priced at about the same level.
A new strategy from Redmond (Score:5, Insightful)
MS are worried that the windows platform is hemorrhaging developers to linux/OS X platforms. And as MS know; more developers, means more software, means more users, means more money, means more developers, etc , etc...
These downloads are aimed at drawing younger, paticularly student developers, to coding in a windows enviornment. Previously, every programming course I ever heard of started with C and Java, because of the low cost of development tools. If MS release free Dev tools, I can see schools and Universities switching to teach VB and C#, so their students are ready for the "real world".A lot of people in my course complain about this, paticularly after internships. When people don't have to pay $600 for Visual Basic, I think its uptake might increase, just a little.
Looks like a long term strategy I think. The question is will it work?
I figure it will draw more programmers back to windows, paticularly those frustrated by the C++/EMACS/Shell method of programming, which is admittedly a tough nut to swallow for the budding hacker. Most these days are likely long term GUI users, much more at home in Visual Studio type enviornments. I know I was! That why I got anjuta [sourceforge.net] Anjuta be praised!!
Re:A new strategy from Redmond (Score:3, Informative)
Haven't been to a University with a Microsoft Campus agreement? They get almost all the Microsoft Software for free.
Need the Windows 98 disc, goto the Library and check it out for a day. Need Visual Studio 6,
Re:A new strategy from Redmond (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's not forget SDK..... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's how it really works (Score:5, Interesting)
As a professional developer, I use both VS.net 2003 and Eclipse (3.0m9) almost every day.
Last year, I worked pretty close with an MS consultant on a project, and he let me in on a few things.
Microsoft only prices the software high so that people give them a percieved value. The consulting groups then turn around and hand out copies of VS.NET,SQL Server and Win2k3 like candy at halloween.
18 months or so ago, There was an article about MS giving away VS.NET CDs at some university, and people started asking about the licensing. The answer generally was "go ahead and use it"... Which illustrates MS's position on devloper tools. Get them into the hands of the users, don't worry about making money on them.
Another effect of this mentality, is the VS.NET installer has a spot for a product key, but it is disabled, thereby allowing anyone to install the product over and over.
Microsoft will likely price the Express editions at $100 +/- $50 , and then proceed to give them away in cereal boxes
My 2c+GST.
I just bought 5 MSDN Universal licenses for $350 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I just bought 5 MSDN Universal licenses for $35 (Score:3, Informative)
1) Look like a software company when they check you out
2) Ship a product and have it certified for some version of Windows (anyone know what this costs?)
3) Get an employee MCP certified.
So, it's not for everyone.
As for the high price of the "Universal" package, I think MS feel they need to price it in the same range as BEA and IBM's enterprise development packages (which list for $10 grand or so). However, if you are small sh
MS For A New Generation (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the
Make money, good PR, invite hobbyists... (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance:
Take product X at $200
Remove 'enterprise', 'professional', and 'commercial' features. Sell as cheap hobbyist or student edition.
Remove 'enterprise' and 'professional' features. Sell as low end (shareware, small developer) edition.
Remove 'enterprise' features. Sell as high end developer edition.
Sell original software at 2-3x the original cost.
By taking the original product, splitting it further than it already was and spreading the price curve they reach more smaller buyers while milking the bigger buyers for more since they are willing to pay it.
It does give good PR (apparantly - it got on slashdot and many seem to think this is a 'good thing') It further gives cheaper tools for home hobbyists. Lastly, it removes some of the incentive for pirate software - if the average user can buy and download a fully supported working version for $50 and an hour of time they may be more likely to do so than searching, installing, troubleshooting, and wondering if the errors they keep getting are their fault or the fault of the pirated software.
But in the end it's simply an old method to extract maximum cash from a larger target audience, while encouraging current users to upgrade.
-Adam
In other news, vim is still free. (Score:3, Interesting)
Those without the time to understand the various quirks of the various new forms of VS may be glad of this update: at time of writing, vim [vim.org] is still free.
I do approve of C# and
Finally, compliant with XHTL W3C standards!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
"ASP.NET allows you to create Web pages that are compliant with XHTML 1.0 Transitional standards. XHTML is a W3C standard that defines HTML as an XML document. Creating Web pages that are compliant with XHTML standards guarantees that the elements in the pages are well formed. Because browsers are moving toward supporting XHTML, creating pages that conform to XHTML standards helps ensure that your pages will be compatible with browsers in the future. XHTML is also extensible, allowing the definition of new elements. Finally, an XHTML page is much easier to read programmatically for situations in which the Web page is processed by a computer, and the document can be manipulated using transformations. For more information about XHTML and the XHTML standards, see the W3C site at www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1."
Also see Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Difference between this and full version (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Difference between this and full version (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Difference between this and full version (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difference between this and full version (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Difference between this and full version (Score:2)
Re:"Hobbyists?" (Score:3, Informative)
And Borland certainly have more interest in cross-platform development than M$.
Re:how about some free cigarettes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or was that a joke?
Re:feeding the addiction (Score:3, Informative)
There are actually two free
Re:feeding the addiction (Score:3, Funny)
Notice to consumer:
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BladeIP hereby grants you a one-time, non-exclusive, non-transferrable, revocable license to use this knife for non-commercial purposes within its "acceptable use." Acceptable use for this knife under
Try bloodshed.net - free compiler (Score:4, Informative)
Also try sharp-develop at www.icsharpcode.net/ , a free
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free compilers!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
- Oisin
Re:Glad I got the Boss to Shell Out (Score:3, Interesting)
While you are certainly entitled to your belief, I fear that you are wrong, by almost a order of magnitude.
An MSDN Universal subscription from Microsoft [microsoft.com] runs $2,799 (new subscription)... however they can be had for much less if you look on eBay [ebay.com] for instance.
If a Subscription was $375 I'd have one myself instead of using the stripped versions (and cheap) I have been using for side projects.
Re:Glad I got the Boss to Shell Out (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.htm l [joelonsoftware.com]
http://members.microsoft.com/partner/competency/is vcomp/empower/default.aspx [microsoft.com]
This offer is for companies only however...so my original reply is probably not valid as I doubt you could register one company twice in this program.
Re:about time (Score:3, Informative)
From the installation notes for the Express web development package