Brian Leach wrote: > VB 2005 Express Edition is free - not evaluation. > It is also very powerful (all the .Net 2 features) and > frankly a lot nicer to use than the full blown Visual > Studio 2005 which is ludicrously machine consumptive. I > now use it in preference and haven't found anything I > need to go back to the 2005 studio to get done.
Pretty OT here folks, but... First, Express Editions only free for 1 year, after which you can continue to use the software, but this isn't a perpetual free program: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/faq/default.aspx#pricing > Suffice to say though, it's all free and clear now for novice and commercial development and deployment. Second, as usual one needs the right tool for the job. I work with C# and VB.NET, and I'd rather not install C# Express plus VB.NET Express (and all of their demo code and docs) for the purpose. I also work on thick clients, Windows Services and other app types, so Web Developer Express which does support both C# and VB.NET is still inadequate for my needs. All I'm saying is that the full for-fee tools do have "value" compared to their free siblings. YMMV Third, regarding bloat - on my 2.8GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM I routinely run VS 2005 plus Outlook plus a few instances of IE, plus Word and/or Excel, plus one or two MV DBMS's, and sometimes with VS 2003 and/or VB6 as well, all of which running with dual monitors eating RAM for lack of VRAM... No doubt the system doesn't fly at light speed but it's certainly an acceptable development environment. Everyone has their own definition of "acceptable", but this is hardly "ludicrously machine consumptive". All that said, yeah, I need another box. :) Finally, (not in response to any specific quote) with the Microsoft Partner program I think we got a full MSDN Universal sub, MS Office, OS licenses, and lots of other benefits for a whopping $300 or something like that - but I do pay for MSDN when I have to, considering all the benefits. I cringe when people say "Micro$oft" these days (with the dollar sign) because in my experience, I pay more for MV licenses and related software than I ever do for "M$" tools. Criticize them for world domination or security flaws (less than non-MS platforms these days), but people really need to do more research before being overly critical or making assumptions about how expensive tools are. HTH T ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
