Microsoft to Give Away Developer Tools to Students

beuges writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Microsoft will make full versions of their development tools available to students. "The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program. Gates said students will want to try Microsoft's tools because they're more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites. But Gates said giving away Microsoft software isn't intended to turn students against open source software entirely. Rather, he hopes it will just add one more tool to their belt.""

Source Code?

[biolitch]

Why don't they give away the sourcecode for Windows to students? This would be far more beneficial to them especially if they hold on to the rights of created/modified windows. Then they might have a viable OS for the future.

Ha

[loconet]

In other news, Jimmy De Brondi, a local crack dealer at Sando-Brando University sues Microsoft for illegally using his patented business practice.

Re:Professional Tools

[Brian Gordon]

Funny you should mention emacs.... :)

This sounds familiar...

[explosivejared]

This sounds like that time the guy down on the street corner gave me some "candy" for free. Next thing I know, I can stay up for for days straight and I'm paying the guy big bucks for more "candy" that I can't now live without.

This is a "good" move on MS' part~

[starglider29a]

As a DOT NET developer, I use MS VS. Why not? I love the autocomplete and the list of Properties and Events for each control once I type the name of the control. Makes me look like a wizard when the boss is watching me code (urk) and I toss in a SqlDataSource, a DropDownList, type "ddlGetStates." and select Databind, save, alt-tab, refresh BAM!!! States DDL... (ok, before you mod me MS Fan-boi, keep reading...)

But then I go home, and having thought of a great feature on the drive home, I FTP into my site, open with a text editor, (insert notepad/BBedit/eMacs/Vi here to taste), and write the code by hand. Even if that means copying an pasting, I... how shall I say this... ***still have to know what I'm doing***. Yeah, all you n00bs, you drag and drop those controls and use F4 to set the properties...Go 'head...

But the minute you have to do that with your ARMPIT, you are sunk. I took a written (the process of leaving graphite trails on paper) test for ASP.NET once... Unless you know what your are doing, you are screwed. Use whatever tools you want, whatever LAMP/.NET. But make sure you learn what you are doing, and not just doing.

Re:Professional Tools

[somersault]

Correlation does not always indicate causality though, of course. It's just the notion that a tool is required to be of a certain size to be professional that is amusing. I guess while Microsoft has been trying to catch up to this whole internet thing, that they got sidetracked and ended up adopting pornstar like philosophies.

Re:A billion students?

[rfunk]

Who said anything about desire? This is Microsoft. They have money and power. A full sixth of the world population will be forced or bribed to code for them. This is their latest plan for beating Open Source.

Re:Professional Tools

[nschubach]

Damn, I just made my first journal about this...

The other fun wording I found on the page is:
Download your products

I thought the products were the property of Microsoft? If I download this, can I assume full legal ownership of my copy?

Re:Professional Tools

[Prof.Phreak]

Well, once upon a time the GNU tools used to be installed more often from disks or tapes you bought from FSF than downloaded, because of what at the time were large file sizes.

Yes. They were professional then.

Academic Genuine Authentication?

[SSNTails]

I can't wait until they add a WGA-like feature. "We're sorry, but you are no longer verified as a student"...

Re:even xml

[trolltalk.com]

yes, sadly, even xml has limitations.

in fact, one might go as far as to say that even xml is useful. Sometimes. If it's used correctly.

What is this "correct use of xml" that you talk about?

Some possibilities?

1. An example of how to take a bad idea and give it an even worse implementation;
2. "<xml>
   <for>
   <target_market>
   Dummies
   </target_market>
   </for>
   </xml>"
3. "Tag Soup" - great for those on a diet - lots of filler to help keep you "regular", low on content, so its less fattening! Bloats right up so you feel full right away!

Maybe we should sprinkle the DTDs with some DDT.

Re:Come Again?

[g1zmo]

any CPU released in the last few years + 2 gigs of memory (4 gigs better - splurge on the extra $40) will run VS fine.

Your recommended specs for a glorified text editor made me snort milk out of my nose. I hadn't done that since the 1st grade. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

Re:Come Again?

[Amouth]

I have a Pentium III 877Mhz processor machine with about a half gig of DDR ram that I purchased in 2000 .... So tell me, what am I doing wrong?

you want to know what your doing worng? first off.. don't try to shove the memory in a slot that doesn't fit it (this is why they key it)... P3 chipsets never had DDR support. second make sure you have a real CPU cause Intel never made an 877Mhz CPU .. an 866 yes (133x6.5)

so yea.. first of make sure your computer works before you complain about the software not running on it.

Emacs?

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's not big at all, for an OS manual!

Re:Professional Tools

[Z34107]

Emacs 2.2: 36Mb zipped. (http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/windows/)

Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition: 2.2Gb required disk space (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/bb894726.aspx)

They got an entire operating system into 36Mb?

Probably because they left out the editor. That's the 2.2 Gb. ^.^

That's not how you do it.

[td04impostor]

Code completion? Syntax highlighting? Bah. That's not how real programmers do the job [xkcd.com]

Re:Professional Tools

[d34thm0nk3y]

I gave Eclipse a spin, just a few weeks ago. It was a confusing, frustrating and fruitless experience. I wasted a whole afternoon trying to get it working.

So, just like Visual Studio then?

Re:Professional Tools

[d3matt]

Nope, real programmers use butterflies [xkcd.com]

Re:Come Again?

[lm317t]

I used to work on a missile simulation toolkit for the Army that targeted Windows and Linux and a few other minor platforms.

Simulating the targeting of Windows and Linux Platforms with missiles might be a bit overkill even for a MS Studio Developer.