3 ms·

Most Microsoft technology is completely free for non professionals. PC came with a Windows CD or the OS was per-installed already. You could install IIS (ASP se

by z3t4 6y ago

Most Microsoft technology is completely free for non professionals. PC came with a Windows CD or the OS was per-installed already. You could install IIS (ASP server, l.limited to 5 users) from the Windows CD. I used the classic notepad.exe to code. It was kinda standard to buy the Office package, which came with a file based database. There where plenty of free tutorials on the web, and IIS also had some examples. And there where services that would host your web app for free. If you wanted to do "real" programming you had to buy books and a compiler which was super expensive. Moving to Linux was a new world opening, that I had only seen glimpses of before. Using apt-get to install an app was mind blowing. Getting used to the command line took a while, but now I do everything from the terminal, except some GUI apps and the browser. Still have to look up most commands and read man pages though.

adwww 6y ago
I think my experience might have been crippled a bit by having had a mac as my main PC since university, meaning less easy access to a non-locked down Windows installation. Much the same way as Windows users probably are not big objective C developers... It just felt like for a server language like .NET that your personal laptop shouldn't really matter much.
- tracker1 6y ago
  In that space, you'd mostly have needed to use Mono and MonoDevelop, depending on the time-frame.. after MS bought Xamarin, Visual Studio for Mac is actually a descendant of MonoDevelop
JAlexoid 6y ago
Windows license is still $199 for us Mac users ;) And even if you're buys a laptop, then you must pay extra for the "pro" version of Windows to actually install IIS. (Last time I tried installing IIS on Win7Home - it just told me that my OS wasn't supported)
- gindely 6y ago
  I have IIS on my Windows 10 Home Surface 6. I have encountered no problems at all; I did not buy it with this in mind, but now it's doing all my dev work. Biggest problem is that Teams uses 600 MB to sit idle so I never have any memory to do anything interesting.

by z3t4 6y ago

adwww 6y ago

I think my experience might have been crippled a bit by having had a mac as my main PC since university, meaning less easy access to a non-locked down Windows installation. Much the same way as Windows users probably are not big objective C developers... It just felt like for a server language like .NET that your personal laptop shouldn't really matter much.

tracker1 6y ago
In that space, you'd mostly have needed to use Mono and MonoDevelop, depending on the time-frame.. after MS bought Xamarin, Visual Studio for Mac is actually a descendant of MonoDevelop

JAlexoid 6y ago

Windows license is still $199 for us Mac users ;) And even if you're buys a laptop, then you must pay extra for the "pro" version of Windows to actually install IIS. (Last time I tried installing IIS on Win7Home - it just told me that my OS wasn't supported)

gindely 6y ago
I have IIS on my Windows 10 Home Surface 6. I have encountered no problems at all; I did not buy it with this in mind, but now it's doing all my dev work. Biggest problem is that Teams uses 600 MB to sit idle so I never have any memory to do anything interesting.