5 ms·

Just off the top of my head: no extensions (no ReSharper, for example, no Nuget), no integrated source control, no memory/performance profiling, basic UX as com

Just off the top of my head: no extensions (no ReSharper, for example, no Nuget), no integrated source control, no memory/performance profiling, basic UX as compared to full VS - things like that. Xcode is a full-fledged development environment. Those things come standard in Xcode. VS Express, by comparison, is a kids toy. It is not a serious development environment. Microsoft also thought huge iPhone/iPad adoption rates was "at best unlikely". Yes, developers had embraced Windows over the past two decades, but that all started to change with iOS/Android. You cannot seriously believe that the world is the same, and that developer's attitudes towards Windows is the same. [$100 + 30/70 split] for iOS is a completely different story than [$49 + $479 + 30/70 split] for Windows. That price point is way to high to drive adoption. Don't take my word for it, though - wait until developers find how disappointing the development experience is with Express.

WayneDB 15y ago
"Xcode is a fully-fledged development environment" - which lacks even the most basic plug-in system! Furthermore, on the far more extensible Windows OS, you can integrate source control into Windows Explorer...another program with a plugin system where Apple offers none. For Memory/Performance profiling, go choose one of the many FREE tools available for Windows - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_performance_analysis_tools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_performance_analysis_to... What are you left with? What does "basic UX" even mean?
dpark 15y ago
How can you complain about the price of VS when you want to drop in a $200 extension? Seriously? I agree those things are nice to have. I don't see that any of them are truly critical, though. The lack of these features is not crippling. > Microsoft also thought huge iPhone/iPad adoption rates was "at best unlikely". Doesn't that go against your argument? Didn't the iPhone prove that developers were very willing to pay to develops apps? > [$100 + 30/70 split] for iOS is a completely different story than [$49 + $479 + 30/70 split] for Windows. You keep insisting that the full version of VS is necessary, but that simply isn't true, and repeating it over and over again will not make it true.
- nupark2 15y ago
  > Doesn't that go against your argument? Didn't the iPhone prove that developers were very willing to pay to develops apps? $99. And only after being able to play with the full/complete development tools and simulator for free. If that's what Visual Studio cost, I'd pay it now. > You keep insisting that the full version of VS is necessary, but that simply isn't true, and repeating it over and over again will not make it true. As an non-MS developer that's just now working with Windows 7 and Visual Studio (C++, and the AVR Studio 5 that's built on top of the VS shell), I can state definitively that the full version is necessary to get any real work done. At the very least, I need VCS integration, a profiler, and an x86-64 compiler.
  - dpark 15y ago
    > $99. And only after being able to play with the full/complete development tools and simulator for free. If that's what Visual Studio cost, I'd pay it now. The "full" tools isn't a fair comparison. Visual Studio is much more feature-rich than Xcode. Apple does not give away the equivalent of Visual Studio for free. Maybe Microsoft will add some of the "must-have" features to VS Express in the 2011 edition. > As an non-MS developer that's just now working with Windows 7 and Visual Studio (C++, and the AVR Studio 5 that's built on top of the VS shell), I can state definitively that the full version is necessary to get any real work done. At the very least, I need VCS integration, a profiler, and an x86-64 compiler. From what I've read, it's possible to get Express to do amd64 compilation. There seem to be some gymnastics necessary, though. I'm not sure why it doesn't work out of the box. As for VCS and a profiler, there are other profilers available, and VCS doesn't have to be integrated. These are not necessary features for the IDE. Having worked on Unix for several years, I find all this "must-have" stuff bizarre. The tools might be necessary, but the idea that they must be integrated is pretty weak. Having a good IDE is very nice, but a text editor and a bunch of command-line tools can get the job done. (With that said, I definitely missed VS.)
    - nupark2 15y ago
      > Having a good IDE is very nice, but a text editor and a bunch of command-line tools can get the job done. (With that said, I definitely missed VS.) When you're trying to attract developers, "get the job done" doesn't cut it. I'm not a big fan of Xcode and Eclipse, but they meet my functional requirements without hoop-jumping.

WayneDB 15y ago

"Xcode is a fully-fledged development environment" - which lacks even the most basic plug-in system! Furthermore, on the far more extensible Windows OS, you can integrate source control into Windows Explorer...another program with a plugin system where Apple offers none. For Memory/Performance profiling, go choose one of the many FREE tools available for Windows - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_performance_analysis_tools http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_performance_analysis_to... What are you left with? What does "basic UX" even mean?

dpark 15y ago

How can you complain about the price of VS when you want to drop in a $200 extension? Seriously? I agree those things are nice to have. I don't see that any of them are truly critical, though. The lack of these features is not crippling. > Microsoft also thought huge iPhone/iPad adoption rates was "at best unlikely". Doesn't that go against your argument? Didn't the iPhone prove that developers were very willing to pay to develops apps? > [$100 + 30/70 split] for iOS is a completely different story than [$49 + $479 + 30/70 split] for Windows. You keep insisting that the full version of VS is necessary, but that simply isn't true, and repeating it over and over again will not make it true.

nupark2 15y ago
> Doesn't that go against your argument? Didn't the iPhone prove that developers were very willing to pay to develops apps? $99. And only after being able to play with the full/complete development tools and simulator for free. If that's what Visual Studio cost, I'd pay it now. > You keep insisting that the full version of VS is necessary, but that simply isn't true, and repeating it over and over again will not make it true. As an non-MS developer that's just now working with Windows 7 and Visual Studio (C++, and the AVR Studio 5 that's built on top of the VS shell), I can state definitively that the full version is necessary to get any real work done. At the very least, I need VCS integration, a profiler, and an x86-64 compiler.
- dpark 15y ago
  > $99. And only after being able to play with the full/complete development tools and simulator for free. If that's what Visual Studio cost, I'd pay it now. The "full" tools isn't a fair comparison. Visual Studio is much more feature-rich than Xcode. Apple does not give away the equivalent of Visual Studio for free. Maybe Microsoft will add some of the "must-have" features to VS Express in the 2011 edition. > As an non-MS developer that's just now working with Windows 7 and Visual Studio (C++, and the AVR Studio 5 that's built on top of the VS shell), I can state definitively that the full version is necessary to get any real work done. At the very least, I need VCS integration, a profiler, and an x86-64 compiler. From what I've read, it's possible to get Express to do amd64 compilation. There seem to be some gymnastics necessary, though. I'm not sure why it doesn't work out of the box. As for VCS and a profiler, there are other profilers available, and VCS doesn't have to be integrated. These are not necessary features for the IDE. Having worked on Unix for several years, I find all this "must-have" stuff bizarre. The tools might be necessary, but the idea that they must be integrated is pretty weak. Having a good IDE is very nice, but a text editor and a bunch of command-line tools can get the job done. (With that said, I definitely missed VS.)
  - nupark2 15y ago
    > Having a good IDE is very nice, but a text editor and a bunch of command-line tools can get the job done. (With that said, I definitely missed VS.) When you're trying to attract developers, "get the job done" doesn't cut it. I'm not a big fan of Xcode and Eclipse, but they meet my functional requirements without hoop-jumping.