Microsoft to Give Away Developer Tools to Students 555
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.""
Almost Thar ... Stay on Target! (Score:5, Insightful)
But I don't quite agree with Gates here.
So this is all around good. I like it even though it's not open source, I think it will overall help Microsoft but may also clarify student's understandings of when to use what tools. I think the next step is for Microsoft to make another license that says you can use it for personal use but once you use it to make money (commercial) you need a commercial license. I don't find anything wrong with that business model. One step further and it could be released under a pseudo MSPL license and another step in the distant future might also entail an even more open state for their development tools. Who knows? All I know is that although this isn't perfect, it's a move in the right direction.
What would really be juicy for me to hear is what Ballmer's take is on this move. I think Gates is generally moving in the right direction but I get this sense that Steve Ballmer is pure evil. Is he seething over this move which to him might just look like lost revenue? Is he even pretending to see this the same way Gates does or is he still in the blind rage "I will f*cking kill ____" mode? I think there are rough times ahead when Gates leaves the scene altogether and I think we will see Ballmer say some pretty stupid things directly contradicting Gates' "just another tool for their belt" view on this.
Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
A billion students? (Score:4, Insightful)
this feels wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
This smells a little like Netscape-gate. It would seem that giving away (very expensive) software to the demographic of "beginners" is using Microsoft's monopoly position to affect competition in another market, in this case software development.
While Open Source tools are available for free, this smacks of Microsoft competing by giving something of perceived monetary value for free too, thus offering something with the imprimatur of "valuable". This is similar to the Netscape debacle. The only difference is that a tool such as Eclipse's starting price already is zero. But, this move by Microsoft unbalances the playing field again with the deep pockets backing them as long as necessary. I'd guess their hope is they plant the seed early enough, and corner the student market and their future work to be always Microsoft products until other tools are no longer used.
When the rest of the competition disappears, Microsoft gets to charge as much as they want. If Microsoft wants to compete like this, I wish the government would do what they'd discussed doing before, and break Microsoft up into separate companies. This would force them to compete along product lines without the ability to destroy competition without fear of losing money in the process. They will lose money in the process, but they won't fear it. And, in the long run, this is a huge money and market grab for them.
even xml (Score:5, Insightful)
in fact, one might go as far as to say that even xml is useful. Sometimes. If it's used correctly.
Re:Almost Thar ... Stay on Target! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As it happens... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As it happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also since Apple in it's infinite 'wisdumb(tm)' choice to kill the java bridge for Cocoa, I have no need to even attempt to use Xcode anymore *shrug*. Oh well.
Re:As it happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the IDE is the best I've used TBH.
Re:As it happens... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has given away software before to secure their market dominance, and it is not unusual for them to sell at a loss to students. I can remember $5 copies of Office in the college bookstore when I was a student, and various other "generous" offers which I could not take advantage of since they wouldn't run on my Linux, Amiga or Apple computers.
Would be worried if it was true (Score:5, Insightful)
I heavily use MS tools (day job) and open source tools and Linux only tools. For argument sake lets say it costs me the same amount of dollars for all the applications/tools regardless of if it is MS or if it is open source -- I still prefer the open source tools. Obviously I don't prefer all the open source tools, there are plenty that I don't like. But those that I do like, I prefer them over their equivalent MS tools (or at least what MS would like to believe are the equivalents).
So this will likely just have the same IE/Netscape effect -- but who didn't see that coming.
Re:As it happens... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like it could be that Microsoft is giving their tools away for free for a different reason than the falling consumer confidence that they are experiencing.
However, you chose the "desperation" angle with Apple, and I wanted to show a jump to a similar conclusion with Microsoft. Granted, the degree of desperation may be different, but when you're at the top, you have a lot further to fall.
Training (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Smart (Score:2, Insightful)
And by a strange coincidence, everywhere I look I see buggy software developed by kids who know next to nothing about algorithms or, really, programming in general. Programming is a highly skilled job which has become synonymous with "crap and annoying" for most users all around the world. It's no surprise that Microsoft - a company with no concern for quality control whatsoever (and why should they: people literally have to buy their products whether they want them or not) - is king of that particular heap.
TWW
Re:Almost Thar ... Stay on Target! (Score:3, Insightful)
Boldiness Mine.
"Various Dev Tools" - infers that there is more than one option available.
This is one of the key strengths of open source. Options. Sure I can easily accept that there are really crappy dev tools out there when compared to MS' offering, but if you don't like what you are using, you can go hunting for something better, and continue to do so with impunity until you find something that really suites your needs/skillset.
"Most open source tools" - tells me that you came across at least one that was at the very least comparable to MS tools. Take Apache for instance. For the heck of it I set up an Apache web server on an old PC. I am no web developer by a long shot, but I got it up and running pretty easily, had myself my own little intarweb and even sorted out virtual hosting by just reading teh manual/browsing through the default config files.
Then I sat back and thought - "Well genius, what can you do with this now that you set it up?" answer: Almost anything! PHP? Yep, SQL? Yep. My own MP3 server that I can play using any device that has a web browser and is connected to the network? Yes. EyeOS? Easy!
I could go on, but the point is - horrible as some OSS offerings might be, they are there, and they are essentially yours to do with as you bloody well please. By and large most tech savvy people can learn to use them, and if one doesn't take your fancy - try another, and if you are stuggling - google is truly your friend! (Also, many OSS offerings are awesomely put together products that can really hold a candle to the best out on offer.)
Re:Almost Thar ... Stay on Target! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the next step is for Microsoft to make another license that says you can use it for personal use but once you use it to make money (commercial) you need a commercial license.
I wish software developers in general would make this concession on professional-level tools. Take Adobe, for example. Even their student/teacher versions are expensive, and don't take into account the occasional person who wants to learn to use CS3, but don't use it professionally and so don't have an economic justification to buy it.
I think that situation accounts for a large volume of casual piracy anyway, and some of these large companies might not lose much by granting that as a legitimate and licensed use. Of course, it could also confuse people by letting them believe that software is "free" just because it's free for non-commercial use. Also, it could cause of sort of slippery slope where people stretch their "non-commercial" use every now and then to include some minor commercial use, until they're a fully professional graphic artist using the "non-commercial" CS3.
Re:Professional Tools (Score:2, Insightful)
Just Microsoft being Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
And if Mr. Gates would like to step outside and deal with this like a man, without hiding behind lawyers or corporate shields, I would be the first to roll up my sleeves.
Say what you will, I AM BIASED and I do not like the man, his politics, or his business practices. There is nothing wrong with the notion that business is a member of a community and owes the community from which it benefits. That's how capitalism won the cold war.
All that has changed in the last 25 years with the fundamentalist capitalists in power. Now it is all greed. Nothing else has a place in the economics policy dialog. Bill Gates has done a lot to further this decline of western "civilization" with the way Microsoft does business. Practices once unheard of and shameful are rewarded by wall street and politicians alike.
When you think about how the Microsoft monopoly has propped up the prices of commodity software, and how much raw cash has been siphoned out of the economy because of the monopoly it is sickening.
The "free" student editions of the development tools are nothing more than a trap. You don't actually get anything. You merely get to invest YOUR time learning THEIR system so that anything you write with THEIR tools has to run on THEIR operating system which you have to pay for,
With a free software strategy, you invest YOUR time learning about tools and systems that everyone has access to for free and can run anywhere you want, including, if it suits you, Windows.
Students of the world don't be fools. It is a transparent attempt to thwart real and substantive change in the IT industry by the free software movement.
MSDNAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft is trying to get students used to using Microsoft software to develop software, so when they go out in the workforce, they'll use *gasp*Microsoft Software*gasp*.
This software isn't free, you'll pay with your soul.
Developers Developers Developers (Score:2, Insightful)
They have recently also given away books [libredigital.com], with similar goal: get as many people programming for their OS'es as they can.
Like several guys [joelonsoftware.com] have pointed out, OSes don't sell themselves, the applications that are developed for the OS does.
[snide]Besides, students are just going to pirate the stuff anyway. Might as well win some much needed brownie points[/snide]
Re:Come Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
diving into the bits (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a Computer Engineering student, so I've done quite a bit of coding in classes and have also had two programming jobs. Just some thoughts on what I've experienced:
In CS 1, they started us out using Macs (yeah, ugh, etc.) to ssh into the CS dept's Sun boxes. With Emacs and the command line java tools, we learned basic coding. When we advanced to CS 2, though, the professor decided it was time to give us Eclipse. I guess this was supposed to be a favor. Instead, I found that I now had less of a feel for how things were going together. Eclipse was hiding stuff from me, and I didn't like it; in trying to make stuff like CVS, compilation, debugging, etc. more transparent, Eclipse was making it harder to understand what was going on. By CS 3, I had reverted to Emacs. When CS 4 rolled around and we moved on to C++, my now Eclipse-dependent compatriots were left in the cold; they fiddled with various Eclipse plugins for a while, then came back to Emacs. Other classes such as Assembly and Applied Programming (C) were also best performed with a text editor and some command line tools.
My first coding job was a summer internship writing C# under Visual Studio. I liked the job but didn't like the development environment. VS seemed to hide things even more than Eclipse... I felt far away from the code. As I recall, I wasn't able to compile my stuff outside of Visual Studio. The super tight integration just didn't work for me. VS struck me as the Disneyland of development tools--flashy, costly, structured; all your lodging (repositories), activities (coding), eating (compilation?), etc. are all right there.
I'm still at my second job. I write C code for the Plan 9 operating system using the Acme text editor, a compiler (8c), a linker (8l), and a debugger (acid). They're good tools and they have the advantage of keeping everything out in the open. I can poke around in the source files and see all the data that acme could show me; there are no hidden properties or anything like that. A utility called the plumber helps link the shell, the editor and the debugger in a useful way. It's a rather looser system, and I have a greater feeling of control when I'm programming with it. If VS is Disneyland, the Plan 9 (or *nix) tools are a hiking trail in the mountains--cheap, allows you to go off the beaten path, the users tend to be dirty... ok, I'm stretching a little.
At last, the point! In my experience, as a computer engineer/student, I want control of my code. I want to know where things are and what they do. I don't like applications that hold my hand too much. Some of my friends prefer to have the development environment do as much as possible, but I think there's a weakness to this--they tend to get lost when something new/unexpected comes up. Even if it's just that their box got fsck'd up and they have to use ssh and emacs to finish a project; at the very least, they're going to be in trouble without some of the features they've come to expect, while at the worst, their code simply will not work/will be unmodifiable (I've seen this happen).
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the most likely one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Languages and APIs are secondary. If you know how to write code, you can pick up either through its documentation in no time. It's not a University's job to teach you these. You can pretty much use any language on any platform to learn programming, since fundamentally, a Unix based C program is the same thing as a Windows based VB.net program. You have inputs, an interface, outputs and structures and algorithms. If you try to cram complicated APIs, you'll spend too much time on the actual API then on the parts of the program that are really what you're trying to teach. printf(); is as good as anyone needs to make an interface for educational purposes. You don't need a WinMain() and a WndProc() with a message loop to teach about sorting.
If you want to specifically learn how to code in a language with a specific API, go to a technical college. There you will learn how to do a GUI version of Hello World. You'll know squat about actual programming, but you'll know a language and an API and once someone has designed a program, you'll probably be able to implement it, as long as someone gives you complete algorithms.
This is the problem with students these days. They forgot they need to learn about programming before learning Languages and APIs. Like anything in life, the basics are more important, the specifics you can learn on your own once you have the basics mastered.
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:5, Insightful)
As for VS2005/SQLServer2005/IIS6. I've used all three of those in a corporate setting and while I agree that VS2005 is a nice IDE and SQL Server 2005 is a decent DBMS, I would hardly consider IIS6 good. Compared to Apache (and hell, even Tomcat), IIS6 is a bag of crap that is only used because it is required for ASP.NET (and other MS tech) websites.
Re:Just Microsoft being Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a "good" move on MS' part~ (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, yes, that's true to some degree. But any non-biased developer must admit that the VS package *is* pretty impressive. Are those features available in other IDEs? Certainly. Are they as polished, or all available within the same package? Well, Eclipse probably comes close. But plugins for Vim and Emacs? Please. They pale in comparison.
That said, I still love Vim (and I used to be a huge Emacs fan). But VS *is* a pretty impressive toolkit (aside from the fact that it's an unbelievable pig, and decidedly buggy at times).
Re:Come Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
The latest VS releases have been very good as far as reliablity goes. Of course, that may be affected by some plugins.. they shouldn't bring down VS, but I imagine they could slow it significantly if they are poorly written.
Re:You forgot the most likely one (Score:3, Insightful)
It now also does not delete > 600 MB zipped backup files with a single infected file in it somewhere (in my "INFECTED, DO NOT EXECUTE" folder that was backed up as well). Gods, I hate McAfee.
Re:Professional Tools (Score:2, Insightful)
The right tool for the right job. Or do you use the same type of paper to wipe your ass that you use to write your TPS reports?
Some people like IDEs, some don't. I liked Borlands' old text-based IDEs (TC, BC++), and the earlier Delphi ones - the later ones are cruftyjunkified beyond belief; Eclipse, even stretched out across 2 monitors, has the same problem. But that's just me - someone else might find that same IDE to be great for them. Just like there might be occasions where you'd want to use a TPS report to wipe your arse, before handing it in ...
Re:Professional Tools (Score:5, Insightful)
More like about 20-30 seconds. But still, so what?
I launch Eclipse at the start of my work day, at the same time that I'm launching my browser, my email client, and an instance of Explorer, and getting started on checking my email. By the time I'm done doing all that, Eclipse has long since finished loading and initializing. I never need to launch it again for the remainder of the day.
Fast startup time is a concern on something like a web browser or file editor, which you're likely going to launch repeatedly throughout the day, but not an IDE.
Re:Professional Tools (Score:3, Insightful)
Except code completion, jump-to-declaration, project-wide renames, etc, are great features to have. I used Emacs for development before, but now I use Jetbrains IntelliJ IDEA, and it is a big difference in sheer efficiency. I'm not so sure that I would like to go back to an ordinary text editor like Emacs for development.
Of course, I'm no Emacs guru, it may have all this functionality, but I haven't found it yet.
"they want because it's more powerful" (Score:4, Insightful)
Men of straw (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't take much to be better than MySQL and PHP. What about PostgreSQL and the various Python frameworks, like Pylons, Django, TurboGears, or even something heavy like Zope?
Oh, and what about freedom to run my business without interference? With free software, I don't have to trust that Microsoft doesn't really see me as a pawn [groklaw.net].
Microsoft: Call me back once you've had a clean record for a decade. Until then, bugger off.
Re:Professional Tools (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same problem as any other plugin-based app: nobody cares about the app, all responsibility is delegated to the plugins. The hardest part is figuring out which plugins you want/need.
Me, I don't want to figure it out. I just want something that works. Click, type, compile, collect paycheck. Eclipse didn't enable me to do that in a reasonable time frame, so I ditched it. Maybe I need a step-by-step tutorial to learn how to install/use it... rather humbling given how I started programming back in the early 80's!
Everyone says Eclipse is awesome, and I'd love to be one of those people, but right now I see Eclipse as just another bloated unstable Java app like every other.
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is a direct correlation between software use in college and software used in businesses, then given Microsoft's dominance in developer tools today (and the past couple of decades) then it would be safe to assume that many colleges were Microsoft shops in the 1980s and 1990s, right? I started my undergraduate work in 1996, and there was no breath of Microsoft tools then. And, talking to older students and professors, there never had been use of Microsoft. Heck, my school didn't start teaching Java until 1998 or 1999. It was Pascal and C and C++ for decades previous.
I remember when I was in college I assumed (naively) that everyone in the real world was using what I was using: vim, g++, bash, etc. It wasn't until I got my first coop job that I realized that 90% of my coworkers had no idea what vi was. Point being, the tools used in university do not necessarily transfer to the real world for a plethora of reasons.
Re:diving into the bits (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, configuring an IDE is painful. Yes, using lightweight tools makes it easier to understand everything that is happening. Yes, rolling with your own development stack gives you the power, because you can choose familiar tools. But none of this scales to large projects or project teams.
IDE tools and features are there for a reason - they're not arbitrary. They exist because previous developers learned the hard way that when the complexity of a system rises, the tool support has to step up and match it. Yes, it means that the tools are more complex and will require time and effort to learn in order to use them efficiently.
Features that make me feel "far away from the code" bring me closer to the program. The code (yes, the code), the compiler, the build tools and the production environment are all practical and necessary details that I, as a developer, wish to ignore as much as possible.
The holy grail is to make the development environment completely transparent. On small projects, lightweight tools get closer to this because of their simplicity. On large projects, their simplicity becomes a liability as the developer compensates for it with extra manual work, and the lightweight approach backfires.
I couldn't care less about the code - I care about the problem and it's solution. The code is a (regrettably) necessary step in this.
It's really nice to work on small systems which don't require a heavyweight IDE. Eclipse is a pig and I much prefer vim. However, using vim and javac is a luxury which I don't take for granted.
Re:Smart (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:4, Insightful)
If you wanted that, maybe CS was not what you should have picked... Did you even google what CS was before signing up?
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully universities teach people how to program. It would be tragic if they learned just a particular tool like Visual Studio 2005, because what will they do when MicroSoft scraps and reinvents
Re:Linux C++ Development better hands down (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what's always worried me about getting into MS-specific technologies... arbitrarily limited lifespans.
Re:Professional Tools (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just another sign of the Microsoft apocalypse (Score:3, Insightful)
There's an old quote [amatecon.com] that goes something like this. Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Computer science is a lot like that fish. If all you learn in school is how to use the current crop of Microsoft developer tools, then the shelf life of your degree will be about five years. However, if you learn the fundamental basics of computer science, then you will have developed the cognitive framework in your mind for easily, almost effortlessly, learning the long list of new programming languages and tools that you will inevitably encounter in your career. That is why universities should focus on the basics [blogspot.com] and not on the toolset du jour in the workplace.
There's another reason why universities should avoid Microsoft developer tools. Those tools are focused on productivity and not on learning. So, there are all these code wizards that generate tons of boilerplate for you. This may jump start your project but you end up not really developing any understanding of what the wizard generates for you. The typical OSS approach is to avoid wizards and put the productivity boosting features in the software architecture itself.
Re:Joking aside (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Professional Tools (Score:4, Insightful)