I can't Believe I'm doing This

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio?

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Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio?

Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure.

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Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio?

'Scuse me while I put on my best MS Spokesdroid Hat...


Indeed there is sir! Microsoft offer their "Visual Studio Express" series of tools for free! Find them on their website and -- please! -- feel free to buy some of our other offerings; remember, a percentage of all money paid to us goes to the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, so you can feel good and _do_ good too!

Are you interested in finding out more? You are? Excellent! Just follow the Yellow Click Road!


Right, I can remove the MS Spokesdroid Hat now.


Odd. Why does PR always make me feel slightly dirty?


--
Sean Timarco Baggaley

(There's no place like homepage! There's no place like homepage!)

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Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio? Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure.

As far as I know (at least with 2003) there wasn't a Standard edition in academic license, only professional... but the VS.NET 2003 Pro was $99 for the academic version.

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Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio? Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure.

I don't think he was alluding to piracy... if that's what you were thinking.

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Original post by stimarco Odd. Why does PR always make me feel slightly dirty?

Only Microsoft PR =)

At OP. Yes, try the Express stuff. If your school has a partnership with Microsoft, you can get the Pro Edition (licensed as Academic tho; this means no commercial realeases :( ) for free through MSDNAA.

Well, to my humiliation and supprise, microsoft is totaly awsome. I wanted to get started developing with C#, I had a MSDNAA copy on my desktop, but I don't do much on that but game. I was looking for tutorials on C#, but I found this instead.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/

Support FAQ for express editions.

Basicly, they are fully working versions of visual studio, but some of the advanced features are cut out to make the size smaller. You are free to download the tools until September 6th, 2006. So I suggest following the manual install instructions and keeping a backup copy for yourself, just in case.

Unlike other versions of visual studio, you are encouraged to distribute your applications, comercialy or otherwise.

So, go for it!

[edit: fixed link -SiCrane]

[Edited by - SiCrane on March 10, 2006 1:27:31 PM]

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Original post by dohtem Quote: Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio? Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure. I don't think he was alluding to piracy... if that's what you were thinking.

No, I was in no way alluding to piracy. I have money enough for either the Visual Studio .Net 2003 Professional, or the Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition. I'm asking for advice on which to buy.
Levi

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Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by dohtem Quote: Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio? Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure. I don't think he was alluding to piracy... if that's what you were thinking. No, I was in no way alluding to piracy. I have money enough for either the Visual Studio .Net 2003 Professional, or the Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition. I'm asking for advice on which to buy. Levi

Someone already linked to the Express versions. I'd recommend you test them out while they are still comepletely free (you have till November to get it and keep it forever). If you like it, you can use that and save your cash. I think the licensing agreements on the Express versions allow for commercial use.

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Original post by dohtem Quote: Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by dohtem Quote: Original post by levjs Quote: Original post by Prozak Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a 2000-ish free version of Visual Studio? Haha, yeah, there is, but I have some money. And I can get it at academic price, since I am a highschool student, and am doing programming for school as well as pleasure. I don't think he was alluding to piracy... if that's what you were thinking. No, I was in no way alluding to piracy. I have money enough for either the Visual Studio .Net 2003 Professional, or the Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition. I'm asking for advice on which to buy. Levi Someone already linked to the Express versions. I'd recommend you test them out while they are still comepletely free (you have till November to get it and keep it forever). If you like it, you can use that and save your cash. I think the licensing agreements on the Express versions allow for commercial use.

Yeah, I probably will do that. Although, I would still like to know the differences between the .Net 2003, and the 2005 Visual Studio versions, if anyone knows.
Levi

Go for 2005 Standard. I just did a product difference eval at my job, and the differences in features between 2005 Standard and even 2003 Enterprise Developer are fairly minimal unless you're in the rare case of working on massive distributed web service business logic. For things like applications, games, and basically everything that isn't boring and paid for by people in suits, 2005 Standard is more than adequate. You get the optimizing compiler, debugger, etc. etc. all in the bundle. You won't miss the "kooky web programmer" features much.

The main reason I recommend 2005 over 2003 is the UI improvements. IntelliSense is a lot more smart in 2005 (although also a lot slower, but that's a reasonable tradeoff). There's stuff like caller/callee graphing and some other high-level reporting tools that are just awesome for working with nontrivial code. There's also a lot of small little enhancements to different bits of the UI; individually they aren't much, but added together they make the 2005 experience a lot more productive and smooth than 2003.

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Original post by ApochPiQ [...]The main reason I recommend 2005 over 2003 is the UI improvements.[...]

Make sure to try express edition before you buy 2005. One of the 'UI Improvements'(In MS's minds at least) is that the UI is now skinned similarly to the way Office 2003 is, and there is no way to disable it. I can't use such GUIs, so my choice is VS 2003 (well, actually the 2003 toolkit plugged into the VS 2002 IDE). If you don't mind such an interface, then by all means go with 2005. The only thing you lose is a bit of speed and a bit of optimization (from what I hear - many people complained about it on the MSDN forums when it was released, and they staff didn't seem to entirely disagree), but feature-wise the IDE improvements are worth it. If only MS used the standard windows controls =-/ 2002 is already at the limits of usability for me with it's custom crap, I really didn't need 2005 to increase it by orders of magnitude