10 ms·

No-cost desktop software development is dead on Windows 8

126 points by Goronmon 14y ago

gfosco 14y ago
This is bone-headed, as are the restrictions on WinRT... Makes me more likely to focus on other platforms.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  Why are restrictions on WinRT boneheaded? Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS. Not to mention battery life and security.
  - myko 14y ago
    What's with the Android FUD? Care to back up your assertion that Android is inherently less secure than say, iOS?
    - Spearchucker 14y ago
      Can't comment on whether it's more or less secure than iOS. What I can say is that it's openness is not only it's biggest strength, but also weakness. Quite simply because a network operator or handset manufacturer (often both) make their own changes to what is, I imagine, a relatively secure base platform. That requires users to trust the NetOp and manufacturer's intentions and, assuming that's all good, users must trust that the NetOp and manufacturer's code is secure. My trust, like my respect, is earnt. It's not handed away on a silver platter.
    - cooldeal 14y ago
      Too easy. How about this news from an hour ago? http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/240000992 http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/2400009... Or this posted 6 hours ago? http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-android-malware-network-240512 http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-androi... This was posted yesterday. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researchers-say-they-snuck-malware-app-past-googles-bouncer-android-market-scanner/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researc... Let me know if you need more references. Note, I didn't say Android is inherently less secure than iOS. Apps policy is the difference and the topic of discussion. What's up with the needless FUD accusations?
      - myko 14y ago
        You said: > Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS Which I took as saying Android is inherently less secure, but I agree after your clarification that isn't what you were actually saying. That said, this doesn't show Android is more susceptible to viruses than iOS devices, and iPhones are not immune to botnets either (http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone-android-users-duped-joining-smartphone-botnet/ http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone-andro... - though this only affected jailbroken iPhones). Previous jailbreak exploits that worked through Safari could have been disastrous as well - it's not that iOS is more secure, but I do agree it seems to be less targeted. As the popularity of iOS seems to be on the rise I believe this will change.
    - cooldeal 14y ago
      Too easy. How about this news from an hour ago? http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/240000992 http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/2400009... Or this posted 6 hours ago? http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-android-malware-network-240512 http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-androi... Note, I didn't say Android is inherently less secure than iOS. Apps policy is the difference and the topic of discussion. What's up with the needless FUD accusations?
    - Xuzz 14y ago
      Sure. iOS has full W^X (aka DEP), Android does not. This prevents JITs on iOS, but it also makes exploits more complex. iOS also has full ASLR (even kernel-level ASLR likely coming in 6.0), Android doesn't to the same extent. iOS also has a more restrictive an low-level sandbox, which denies access to many kernel interfaces; Android has a sandbox, but less restrictive. iOS also has app review; with Android, malware could (and has) easily enter the user-facing market. All code that runs on iOS must be signed by Apple, this significantly hurts exploit development as all code must be written using "gadgets" from existing, signed code. Android will run anything. Android also has the issue of updates: most Android 2.x phones are not going to ever get the improvements in later versions. More technical info: http://www.trailofbits.com/resources/mobile_eip-04-19-2012.pdf http://www.trailofbits.com/resources/mobile_eip-04-19-2012.p...
  - beagle3 14y ago
    > Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS. But then, OSX and Linux don't have quite as many spyware and viruses, so the lack of restrictions is NOT the problem. (yes, OSX has recently seen a surge in malware - the vast majority of it predicated on exploiting Java. Java might be a problem. Lack of restrictions isn't)
    - jwoah12 14y ago
      In August 2011, Gartner estimated Apple's PC market share in US as 10.7% for Q2 2011. Apple's worldwide market share is not listed, because it is not in the list of top 5 computer manufacturers, and is inferred to be 5% or lower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...
    - cooldeal 14y ago
      Popularity seems to a better gauge. OS X was not very popular till recently and now it is getting the attention of malware writers. The fake antivirus malware for OS X didn't even target Java or Flash, it just plain got people to download an executable. To sum it up, my assertion is: Popular and lack-of-restrictions implies malware is made. And what you said does not contradict that assertion.
      - beagle3 14y ago
        > Popular and lack-of-restrictions implies malware is made. That's a more reasonable assertion (but isn't what your original post said, nor was popularity implied). And while it is reasonable, I don't think there's really a way to draw a conclusion here; e.g. in the early 2000s, Apache had something like 6 times the market share of IIS and about 1/30 of the exploits; product design DOES make a difference here. I don't know how easy it is to get someone to run an OSX executable, but a linux virus spreading by email would have to include instructions to the user along the lines of save this file as really_innocent_file, drop into a shell, run chmod a+x really_innocent_file && exec really_innocent_file and you'll see a naked picture of $CELEBRITY.
  - CrazedGeek 14y ago
    Why should Microsoft or Apple decide what software I can run on my device? Right now, one of the top stories on HN is Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil Speakers Touch iOS app being removed from the App Store (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4019660 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4019660). If the devices I use subscribed to the "user must be totally protected from themselves" philosophy, then I'd be totally unable to use their product. However, that's thankfully not the case -- I can still purchase and use Airfoil for Mac and Windows, two (currently) mostly open platforms (http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/). Mountain Lion's Gatekeeper, iOS, and the WinRT restrictions make me wary of the future.
    - jeremyarussell 14y ago
      Why should Microsoft or Apple decide what software I can run on my device? I believe their argument is to allow them to retain a semblance of control on their respective platforms. Something about people always blaming the maker of their operating system for the glitches which may or may not actually be the OS's fault, and can tend to be the programmers fault. That's what they say anyways.
ginko 14y ago
Or they can just use MinGW again just like when there was no free version of VS.
- raverbashing 14y ago
  This But maybe the .NET SDK keeps being free. It's a real pity, but well, Visual Studio didn't have a Express version "back then" before the .NET days (think Visual Studio 6) This may very well be another reason not to use Windows
- axusgrad 14y ago
  I'm grateful for the continued development of MinGW and MSYS. It makes porting to Linux much easier.
- law 14y ago
  I used to be devoted VS2010 user, but when C++11 came out, I realized that Microsoft had no intention of incorporating all of the changes into its products in the near future. Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE. Although I'm giving up a considerable amount of usability, the trade off was well worth it.
  - jpdoctor 14y ago
    > Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE. I note that eclipse + MinGW works quite well, though I wish the debugger was a little more configurable. I haven't used Code::Blocks, so I can't compare.
alexbell 14y ago
Hopefully university CS courses will stop utilizing Visual Studio now.
- thomaslangston 14y ago
  I'd rate that as highly unlikely. Microsoft's DreamSpark initiative makes this software free for many schools. https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/
  - AlexFromBelgium 14y ago
    I get everything for free.. Server software, IDE, ... and I feel dirtier, and dirtier every time!
- joelhaasnoot 14y ago
  Back to Java it is... On the other hand many universities have free access to Visual Studio Professional through MSDN-esque licensing programs.
  - gouranga 14y ago
    I'd rather they picked Java than C#.
    - de90 14y ago
      How come?
      - gouranga 14y ago
        The language is fine. The framework is not. It has the appearance of being free and open, but a lot of the framework is not and has aggressive licenses. It's easy to creep into those bits unintentionally via ignorance or dependency and then you're stuck with the vendor's extensions (MS) which are hard to shake. (I've been a C# developer since pre-beta days so I'm fairly experienced at getting shot by these things). Java is pretty much open, there are several implementations and most components in their stacks and application stacks on top are 100% pluggable (including J2EE). The same is not the case for anything which involves WCF, ASP.Net etc. Ideally ANSI common lisp would be better as there are several competing implementations and one core standard.
gecko 14y ago
I agree with Ars that the VisualStudio changes are bad, but is there any confirmation that the SDK change isn't temporary/won't have an official solution by the time of shipping? Microsoft has distributed the C++ compiler for years; it'd be very odd for them to do an about-face now. This reminds me off the uproar when Xcode 4 was suddenly a $5 purchase...except that it wasn't for users on the newer OS, when it actually shipped.
- randomfool 14y ago
  If so this really sucks for build machines- don't want to have to get a VS license just for that.
- flomo 14y ago
  An Ars commenter posted this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.as... I agree this is really shocking. Even if most Windows devs bought into Visual Studio Pro & MSDN, there was always the free option.
dos1 14y ago
Why is Microsoft so hell-bent on destroying the desktop OS that made them what they are today? The Metro stuff is fine for tablets, but it's a TERRIBLE user experience on a traditional desktop computer. I don't even understand this "everything must be a super simple little app" approach that both Apple and (and now because they're a big copy cat) Microsoft are taking. Is this really what the populace wants? I understand that constraints often yield the best designs, but this is a little crazy. And as far as the dev tooling - that was one area that Microsoft was notably competent. I really can't see how this will benefit them in the long term. Seriously, what is the upside for them? A few more Metro apps? They'll win the battle but lose the war.
- ajross 14y ago
  It's a disease. Once everyone realized that touch (and mobile more generally) interfaces were going to "replace" the desktop for many day-to-day uses, they all went nuts trying to rearchitect and "evolve" the desktop in that direction. Thus Unity, and Gnome 3, and Lion, and Metro. And most of these things don't even suck, they're just needlessly different. What irks me and others, I suspect, is that the standard WIMP desktop was a mature, well-understood, and very usable metaphor. There's nothing wrong with it.
  - JulianMorrison 14y ago
    http://mate-desktop.org http://mate-desktop.org probably won't go all "tablet" any time soon.
  - superuser2 14y ago
    For you. For me. Not for grandpa. And there are more grandpas than hackers right now. Immediate visibility of functionality, dropping the filesystem metaphor, standardizing and simplifying the installation of software, and enforcing a consistent UX works better than WIMP for a significant portion of people who would rather not expend effort on making their tools carry out their will. (Only, of course, if their wills are relatively simple. But the intuitiveness vs. power tradeoff is a technology problem, and one there is going to be market pressure to solve.)
drhayes9 14y ago
What's the larger strategy here: "Lose"? I don't understand why they would do this. Seems like people will just shrug and migrate towards the free tools that will help them solve a variety of problems in more interesting ways (e.g. gcc, python, ruby, JS, etc.). Then they'll start migrating towards platforms that make it easy to create those solutions (Linux, OSX).
jaredsohn 14y ago
For those just reading the headline and not the article, it is important to note that Visual Studio 2010 Express will continue to be available for free. (But it won't take advantage of changes to the compiler or the environment.)
- marshray 14y ago
  Only a fool would base their development environment on the hope that an outdated compiler version will still be downloadable from Microsoft's website into the future. That thing is crippleware anyway, it can't even produce native 64-bit executables. Raise your hand if you're still on a 32-bit operating system.
  - JohnTHaller 14y ago
    Well over half of the Windows install base is 32-bit. And 32-bit apps work just fine on 64-bit Windows (excluding system level utilities/drivers, of course).
  - jaredsohn 14y ago
    I assume this matters in case you might later need to reinstall? Just make a local copy of the installer after you download it then. Even if you forget to do this, prominent files like this don't disappear from the Internet; at worst you could torrent it. (And that should be legal since I don't think the software expires.)
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition is still available from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2008-editions/express http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2008-ed... The reason Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is no longer available for download may be found here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual-studio-2005-express http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual-st...
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marshray 14y ago
It seems Microsoft only has one reliable tactical move: leverage the installed base of Windows users. They always fall back on this strategy whenever they want to prop up some other product. For developers, they often provided carrots to encourage them in a certain direction. This tended to work sort of well, as there are always large numbers of new CS students expecting the Microsoft-recommended stack to provide a reliable career ticket. Maybe after they saw what Microsoft just did to Silverlight developers and they're not so eager to follow that path. I never thought that they'd go so far as to actually take the stick to native Win32 developers. How can they not realize how much of their app ecosystem is still built on native code and how much easier it is to get started with that type of development on other platforms? (In every one of these forums one or two people pop up to say how great this will be for developers and you can still use the free Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition to write native code or managed code to write C++. This is not correct, that product is crippleware and the managed code stuff is not anything like native C++.)
drivebyacct2 14y ago
Microsoft still gives away the compilers, SDKs, .NET Runtime/SDKs, no? Is the expectation that an IDE as powerful as Visual Studio be given away for free? Or just that the Windows Store not charge a fee for utilizing their distribution infrastructure? There was a time before Express editions. edit: I failed to scroll through the rest of the article, feel free to ignore me. I would delete but I don't like stranding replies. Apologies.
- gecko 14y ago
  If you read the article, you will find that MS is currently declining to ship compilers as part of the Windows 8 SDK, which is why Ars is so concerned. But I'd also point out that Visual Studio Express 2010 is indeed free, and far more flexible than its 2011 replacement. This represents a massive policy shift.
  - deleted 14y ago
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  - hartez 14y ago
    From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.as... (under the section "Updated or Removed Features"): The Windows SDK no longer ships with a complete command-line build environment. The Windows SDK now requires a compiler and build environment to be installed separately. Below that they also list a dozen tools and a bunch of documentation and samples that they also no longer include in the SDK. My guess is that they're just trimming down their SDK downloads. Their SDK has been getting more and more bloated over the years with utilities and samples and stuff that most devs don't need. Completely dropping their command line tools doesn't make sense for anyone who runs build servers; it doesn't make sense for their Powershell tools; and it really doesn't make sense when you consider their recent moves in Open Source. My guess is that the command line tools will be separate downloads from the basic SDK and you'll still be able to write C# code in Notepad++ if you like. The basic SDK will be targeting people writing Metro apps (which they want to encourage by default), but they aren't going to just drop everything else. This is a company that lives and breathes backward compatibility, after all. It's just a case of poor messaging by Microsoft. Remember last year when everyone thought that all Windows 8 apps were going to be Javascript/HTML 5?
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cobrausn 14y ago
"It's very likely that most productivity applications will stick with the desktop for some years to come. The same is true of utility programs, AAA-gaming titles, and a large swath of current Windows software..." My bet is most of these developers currently pay for Visual Studio professional versions anyway. So, not much different for them. Seems like the new restrictions are just for hobby development - they'll be forced to make Metro-style apps, which is what they (MS) wants.
- marshray 14y ago
  How do you think these professional Windows developers got into it before they turned pro? Hint: most of them didn't learn it in college.
  - cobrausn 14y ago
    Now they get into it before turning pro by writing Metro apps. Which is what MS wants, right? More metro apps?
    - marshray 14y ago
      No, more often than not they'll grow up writing Linux, iOS, Mac, and Android tablet apps. I've never actually even seen a WP7 device or a Metro app. Even shrinkwrapped apps coded entirely in dotnet are relatively rare. Even once Windows 8 starts shipping it will many years before Windows developers can ignore the billion-or-so computers still running Windows 7, Server 2k8, and below. Compatibility with the native Win32 app ecosystem is the primary source of Windows' monopoly on desktop computing. Microsoft products rarely succeed outside of that (like any other company). For them to actively try to kill that off is truly insane IMHO.
  - mattmanser 14y ago
    Downloaded VB6 for free from Kazaa? Not me of course... I actually remember trying to decide between eclipse and VB6. What whim made me end up choosing the latter now completely escapes me. I think it was because it didn't have those weird {} braces. Ah, C#, the irony.
programminggeek 14y ago
I think that non-windows devs don't realize how much Windows devs LOVE Visual Studio. They will spend however much money it costs to use it. Also, VS is like $500-600? Devs pay that for IntelliJ all day long, so why not VS? Honestly, for a tool you would use all day long at work, $500 is cheap. If you NEED Visual Studio for C++, then it's worth the money. Sure, on Linux and OS X you get free dev tools like XCode and GCC, but MSFT spends a lot of money building these tools, so if they decide they no longer want to subsidize them by offering them free, it's their business. They want devs making Metro apps, not old Win32 C++ apps. If they don't get Metro apps to be built in a big way, Windows 8 tablet edition for human beings 2012 is never going to take off. It makes sense for Microsoft.
- excuse-me 14y ago
  Indeed - why not make a $2500 MSDN subscription compulsory to develop for the Windows desktop. After all if you are writing apps you can afford it. If they decide that they don't want any apps on Windows other than Office it's their business. But it's a bit of a change from developers-developers-developers!
  - batista 14y ago
    >Indeed - why not make a $2500 MSDN subscription compulsory to develop for the Windows desktop. After all if you are writing apps you can afford it. You're being sarcastic, but it would a possible move too. And yes, if you're writing apps you can afford it. It's not like Windows has too few apps, anyway, the could use the price as a quality control to throw one-man software companies out (there goes 99% of shareware).
    - excuse-me 14y ago
      They could introduce an app store for windows8 where only MSFT approved apps could run. They might not get many desktop upgrades from Win7 though !
      - tar 14y ago
gouranga 14y ago
Good. Microsoft can officially go to hell with respect to desktop development after the day I've had today dredging through a debugging job from hell. 75% of my time writing software is: * Watching VS crash miserably. It's just seriously unreliable. * Digging through MSDN trying to find out cryptic errors. * Desperately trying to debug issues with various black boxes (today was 4 hours on a w3wp crash due to a CLR.dll bug related to stack usage resulting in an interesting session with EDITBIN). * Dredging through hotfix lists trying to find out which one solved a problem. * Sitting on the phone for HOURS to MS support who barely speak a work of English these days and don't give a shit - they just want you to fuck off so they can close the case. This is usually because two products won't talk to each other (IE and ClickOnce for example). * WAITING LITERALLY FUCKING HOURS for things to compile and rebuild. * Endless fucking updates that take several minutes to apply, sometimes an hour plus. I WANT TO USE MY FUCKING COMPUTER. Not much: * solving problems of my own. Sorry for the rant but that's why it's really dead. Good riddance. It's all a "me too" as google and apple have app stores. Bring on the web for everything.
- keithwarren 14y ago
  You are clearly a troll who has either A) Spent no time using VS in real life or B) well...see A
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    It could be related to what he's working on and the tool chain he's using. If you venture out of the box, you can have a very different VS experience. I use C# + nothing else, so everything is very stable for me (occasionally I encounter bugs). Really, Eclipse is the same way (if you don't add any extra plugins, it works very very well!).
  - gouranga 14y ago
    Indeed I'm trolling so bad because I've only clocked approximately 18000 hours of using it in real life since the first beta drop of VS.Net 2002 to 22:15 this evening... Yes that's really three zeroes rounded down heavily (8 hours a day, 23 days a month, 12 months a year for 10 years)...
ajasmin 14y ago
I hope they at least let us write console apps. How many lines of code is a Metro "Hello, World"?
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Four. <!doctype html> <meta charset=utf-8> <title>Metro app</title> hello, world<br>
ognyankulev 14y ago
Reminds me of OS/2: a great OS with expensive development tools, and some of us remember how it ended... except that Windows 8 is not so great in comparison with contemporaries. I hope Ubuntu exploits this opportunity.
- debacle 14y ago
  Ubuntu and Unity are on the outs, I think. Ubuntu is no longer the future of Linux adoption.
- marshray 14y ago
  I remember reading a Jerry Porunelle column where he described the difference between talking to IBM and Microsoft at COMDEX that year (1991?). IBM was charging something like $400 for its driver development kit at the time. He said "if I go over to the Microsoft booth and tell them I want to write device drivers for Windows, they'll stuff diskettes in my bag". But I'm sure IBM was thinking "if you're making hardware devices why couldn't you afford $400 for a OS/2 driver developer license?" Like Microsoft's dim early understanding of open source software, completely missing the point.
jpdoctor 14y ago
Every other release from microsoft gets committed to obscurity and ridicule. (ME, Vista, ) I was wondering how Win8 was going to self-destruct, thanks for letting me know.
excuse-me 14y ago
" productivity applications will stick with the desktop " So by definition tablet and phone apps are unproductive? Actually that's probably true!
diego_moita 14y ago
From a business perspective this makes sense. C++ is a slowly fading language. Most universities/colleges are abandoning it and those that still cling to it are in an anti-MS mindset. Therefore, not to much to loose here.
- marshray 14y ago
  FWIW, I've been hearing this since about a year or two after Sun released Java. I'll consider believing it when I see a major web browser or office suite written in something else.
  - kibwen 14y ago
    Could have sworn that OpenOffice was Java, but turns out it's C++ after all. In that case, I suppose this is your best hope: https://github.com/mozilla/servo https://github.com/mozilla/servo (Not quite a web browser yet, last I checked its exhaustive feature list was "drawing rectangles". But getting there, slowly.)
    - marshray 14y ago
      Yeah I'm keeping my eye on Rust. I like what I'm seeing so far.
- batista 14y ago
  >From a business perspective this makes sense. C++ is a slowly fading language. Most universities/colleges are abandoning it and those that still cling to it are in an anti-MS mindset. Don't know where you got that impression. No one in the industry that always used C++ abandons it. That is, any kind of shrink-wrapped software, from Office and Photoshop, to Final Cut Studio, to databases, to games etc. Even the biggest of the web shops rely on it, namely Google and Facebook. If anything there has been a tremendous comeback of C++ in the last year, especially with the new standard. But what you got more wrong is the assumption that MS somehow abandons C++ with this move? Actually MS heavily touts C++/0x for Metro and general windows development. They even had a huge conference touting the return to emphasis to C++ a couple of months ago, titled "back to native".
leke 14y ago
Why are people complaining? This is exactly what one would expect with the MicroSoft OS option. This is their business model -- to make money and then use that money to deliver a user experience. Long term Windows users should not be surprised or offended by this.
snorkel 14y ago
I used be one of those suckers who would fork over $hundreds to Microsoft every few years to keep up with the latest-greatest VC++ and SDKs. Always annoyed me how Microsoft would cripple its affordable tools in ways that I feel actually hurt Windows in the long run. It definitely made me shelve my own Windows projects and get into web development instead, and there's no regrets there.
jlarocco 14y ago
This seems like a huge over reaction, and bordering on misinformation. First of all, for the longest time there were no free versions of Visual Studio for producing any kind of application. Second, even the recent "Express" versions have always been severely crippled. Where were the "No-cost 64-bit development is Dead on Windows 7" when the previous Express versions were released? The Express versions are more like promotional tools than real versions of VS. For any serious development you'll probably need to buy a VS license anyway.
- smiler 14y ago
  Exactly, Express didn't allow you to manage class library projects, which rules out almost all serious development anyway.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    This is not true, but I don't have the ability to downvote. You can define new class library projects in Express 2010, you can add it to other projects, you can do whatever.
  - ramchip 14y ago
    I've built class libraries just fine with Express. Personally, what is a problem for me is that it can't handle multi-language projects.
    - smiler 14y ago
      Apologies - I thought this was a restriction on early versions, maybe they changed it with later ones
- marshray 14y ago
  Yes, Express has always seemed like something of an amateur development tool useful mainly to students who will graduate before writing 3000 lines of code. But the command line compilers in the SDK and DDK are a different story.
- 14y ago
brudgers 14y ago
If my VS 2010 Express Edition works, why should I care? Not having the 2011 IDE isn't going to affect my productivity anywhere near the degree that a lack of coding expertise does...it's not like I need to rush out and upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. If I have an excuse to skip an upgrade cycle next year, that's fine with me. Over the long term, I expect Microsoft to continue to provide appropriate tools for the amazing price of free as in beer...again, it's just hard for me to see what someone is complaining about when 2010 Express Edition will continue to be available. Finally, Reading through the comments, there's very little, "I use VS Express and now I'm screwed." I've played around with Windows Phone SDK, and it's easier to produce something that looks good than with WPF or Forms. Though I hate to say it, switching to all Metro for anything desktop related will probably make me more productive not less. (edit) If I want to write a command line utility, I'll continue to use powershell.
clarky07 14y ago
This is an absurd article. Microsoft spends tons and tons of time and money making this product that is Visual Studio. How dare they want people to pay for the full version. Express is a demo, nothing more and nothing less. Be happy they provide it at all.
forrestthewoods 14y ago
This is not a real issue. Visual Studio 2010 will continue to work just fine. As will 2008 or even 2005. Anyone with a business license, even a $50 sole proprietorship, can get every piece of software Microsoft makes for zero dollars via free MSDN subscription [1]. This includes licenses for Office, XP/Vista/Win7 home/pro/ultimate, Visual Studio Ultimate, SQL Server, and so on and so forth. The licenses are free forever and ever. [1] BizSpark program. It's fantastic. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
moistgorilla 14y ago
I am happy about this. Now c++ developers will hopefully look at the other options (Qt Creator, please try it) and normal users will look at other operating systems (ubuntu).
ascendant 14y ago
This really isn't a big deal for me. Mainly because I have no urge to develop for Windows now, nor will I have the urge to do so then. That makes things so much easier.
loso 14y ago
I started off as a hobbyist developer who thought you had to use Visual Studio to develop for Windows. So I pirated a copy because I couldn't afford the real thing. As soon as I figured out that there were cheaper or open source alternatives, I uninstalled and went that route. The Express versions made me look at Windows development again. Even though I can afford the Professional version now, I really don't like to see the way that they are going. I think its boneheaded and might close them off to a new generation of programmers. Open Source and IOS development are already seen as the "cool thing". I don't see how this move gets Microsoft back into the good graces of a younger generation of programmers.
malkia 14y ago
I've found myself a nice sweet spot - Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - it ships with Compiler (MSC 15.0) that can target MSVCRT.DLL It's unusual to use something like the WDK for Desktop Apps, but it works. The compiler is a bit outdated, and there is need for some trickery to get stl7 (internal naming) to work, but if something is missing you can install latest WSDK with it and reuse missing libs/headers from there (platform sdk) At work I do use VS2010 with .sln/.vcxproj, but for my projects I just stay away from this - either makefiles, shell scripts, or some other tool, but not .sln/.vcxproj Then again, I don't do much UI stuff, and If I do - I do it in code. Debugging is there (but a bit harder, then again much more powerful) with WinDBG. There is also OllyDBG. So WDK + SDK (missing pieces) and I'm set. And since I avoid heavy C++ projects, prefer to stick to C it's not problem for me. Occasionally I have to fix simple problems, like variable not declared at the top of the block, which never "C" compilers are okay, but MSC 15.0 is not (the one from WDK 7.1)
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Its an interesting trend. The Ars prose was a bit more breathless than I'd prefer but there is an underlying 'computer as appliance' trend that has been steadily growing for some time. Some folks talk about the 'Post-PC' era but I feel like its more like things that didn't use to require a computer are being aggregated and replaced by something that contains a computer. TV/Book/Catalog/Phone/Game thingy. The canonical example is an iPad. That said, there are more folks who could care less about writing code on a PC doing work or using one, than people who do write code. That fact coupled with the cost of tool maintenance leads Microsoft to choose the route they are on. Computers, and dedicated personal computers, will continue until the heat death of the universe as far as I can tell but the number of folks who need the 'general purpose programmability' seems to have flattened out.
coffeeaddicted 14y ago
As opensource library developer I think this sucks hard. They should at least let the command-line tools working so people can test if software still compiles/runs with their compiler without having to buy a license just for that (Borland C++ is this way these days). VS 2010 staying free is nice, but certainly it's missing some new C++11 features and obviously the amount of missing features will only increase over time. Also I'm wondering something about Metro... so far I haven't found a wrapper for OpenGL, but only Direct3D. Yet another attempt at killing a competing standard?
stan_rogers 14y ago
I hope nobody minds too very much if I inject just a little bit of reality here: we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer). Carpenters, mechanics, hairdressers, even window-washers all have to pay for their tools (and the associated supplies and tool maintenance), and most of them don't get anything like the ROI that a door-to-door ASP.NET site peddler would get pounding the pavement in downtown Lesser Podunk after buying the ultimate all-in version of VS. Maybe it's time we dropped the entitlement attitude.
- delian66 14y ago
  >>we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer). That is because software development tools like all other software is just data, once written and debugged. Data can be copied at zero cost, which can not be said about physical tools, at least for now.
hereonbusiness 14y ago
It seems that Microsoft is going full Apple.
chj 14y ago
Is this saying that no way to develop c++ applications with VS 11 Express? If so, it is horrible for beginners, and I don't see how MS is going to benefit from this move.
patio11 14y ago
Directly contrary to the thesis of the article: Microsoft is absurdly generous with software licenses if you're going to build on their stack. Even without getting a deal from the inside, you can get on their e.g. BizSpark program, which gets you essentially every software product made by Microsoft for free for three years. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ The only requirements are you have to be working on the MS stack, privately held, and making less than a million bucks.
- mythz 14y ago
  You're right it is absurd -- to think it's generosity. Whilst most development stacks these days are free in-beer-and-use for life - Microsoft gives you unlimited access to try out all their wares hoping you get hooked on as much of it as possible so when the 3 year is up, you're up for the lump some of your IT development infrastructure. It's a lot harder to move off a platform once you're hooked on it so by doing this Microsoft expects a life-long re-occurring income as your infrastructure upgrades and grows. This 3 year "absurd generosity" is nothing more than a classic bait and switch Marketing strategy - although it does have the pleasant side-effect of not immediately obvious, and is sometimes mistaken for generosity.
  - ctdonath 14y ago
    By the time your biz has been developing for Windows for 3 years you should be able to afford the tools. It's not bait-and-switch, it's helping customers use a product to make money with which they can pay for the product - more a "pay only if it works for you" model. Fair enough.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      > By the time your biz has been developing for Windows for 3 years you should be able to afford the tools The point is that with their competition, customers are never required to afford the tools. > it's helping customers use a product to make money with which they can pay for the product Again, it's helping customers into a position they'll need to be customers in the future, if they have a future. If they don't, why would Microsoft care?
drivingmenuts 14y ago
If it encourages people to dump Microsoft and develop on other platforms, I'm all for it.
nl 14y ago
Yeah, that's kind of useless if you are a hobby developer releasing a free product.
voodoochilo 14y ago
nice, foss wins:)
mmcconnell1618 14y ago
I see this as just another side-effect of letting a marketing guy (Balmer) take the helm instead of a developer (Gates). As soon as visual studio became segmented into different versions it no longer represented a product designed to increase developer adoption of Windows. Instead, it became a potential profit center. A short-term financial gain at the long-term expense of Windows applications and market share. Companies that are willing to take long term risks are not valued in a world of high frequency trading. Balmer is hoping that by force feeding Windows 8 Metro apps down developer throats he will convince Wall Street that Microsoft isn't dead yet.
terjetyl 14y ago
You already have tons of other super-lightweight great tools enabling you to create great client applications using only javascript and html5 already so server side languages are pretty soon mostly restricted to creating rest services consumed by the same javascript applications. Also when you can just use node.js to create the rest services the need for a tool like visual studio is really fading.

126 points by Goronmon 14y ago

gfosco 14y ago

This is bone-headed, as are the restrictions on WinRT... Makes me more likely to focus on other platforms.

cooldeal 14y ago
Why are restrictions on WinRT boneheaded? Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS. Not to mention battery life and security.
- myko 14y ago
  What's with the Android FUD? Care to back up your assertion that Android is inherently less secure than say, iOS?
  - Spearchucker 14y ago
    Can't comment on whether it's more or less secure than iOS. What I can say is that it's openness is not only it's biggest strength, but also weakness. Quite simply because a network operator or handset manufacturer (often both) make their own changes to what is, I imagine, a relatively secure base platform. That requires users to trust the NetOp and manufacturer's intentions and, assuming that's all good, users must trust that the NetOp and manufacturer's code is secure. My trust, like my respect, is earnt. It's not handed away on a silver platter.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    Too easy. How about this news from an hour ago? http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/240000992 http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/2400009... Or this posted 6 hours ago? http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-android-malware-network-240512 http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-androi... This was posted yesterday. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researchers-say-they-snuck-malware-app-past-googles-bouncer-android-market-scanner/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researc... Let me know if you need more references. Note, I didn't say Android is inherently less secure than iOS. Apps policy is the difference and the topic of discussion. What's up with the needless FUD accusations?
    - myko 14y ago
      You said: > Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS Which I took as saying Android is inherently less secure, but I agree after your clarification that isn't what you were actually saying. That said, this doesn't show Android is more susceptible to viruses than iOS devices, and iPhones are not immune to botnets either (http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone-android-users-duped-joining-smartphone-botnet/ http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone-andro... - though this only affected jailbroken iPhones). Previous jailbreak exploits that worked through Safari could have been disastrous as well - it's not that iOS is more secure, but I do agree it seems to be less targeted. As the popularity of iOS seems to be on the rise I believe this will change.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    Too easy. How about this news from an hour ago? http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/240000992 http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/2400009... Or this posted 6 hours ago? http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-android-malware-network-240512 http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-androi... Note, I didn't say Android is inherently less secure than iOS. Apps policy is the difference and the topic of discussion. What's up with the needless FUD accusations?
  - Xuzz 14y ago
    Sure. iOS has full W^X (aka DEP), Android does not. This prevents JITs on iOS, but it also makes exploits more complex. iOS also has full ASLR (even kernel-level ASLR likely coming in 6.0), Android doesn't to the same extent. iOS also has a more restrictive an low-level sandbox, which denies access to many kernel interfaces; Android has a sandbox, but less restrictive. iOS also has app review; with Android, malware could (and has) easily enter the user-facing market. All code that runs on iOS must be signed by Apple, this significantly hurts exploit development as all code must be written using "gadgets" from existing, signed code. Android will run anything. Android also has the issue of updates: most Android 2.x phones are not going to ever get the improvements in later versions. More technical info: http://www.trailofbits.com/resources/mobile_eip-04-19-2012.pdf http://www.trailofbits.com/resources/mobile_eip-04-19-2012.p...
- beagle3 14y ago
  > Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS. But then, OSX and Linux don't have quite as many spyware and viruses, so the lack of restrictions is NOT the problem. (yes, OSX has recently seen a surge in malware - the vast majority of it predicated on exploiting Java. Java might be a problem. Lack of restrictions isn't)
  - jwoah12 14y ago
    In August 2011, Gartner estimated Apple's PC market share in US as 10.7% for Q2 2011. Apple's worldwide market share is not listed, because it is not in the list of top 5 computer manufacturers, and is inferred to be 5% or lower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    Popularity seems to a better gauge. OS X was not very popular till recently and now it is getting the attention of malware writers. The fake antivirus malware for OS X didn't even target Java or Flash, it just plain got people to download an executable. To sum it up, my assertion is: Popular and lack-of-restrictions implies malware is made. And what you said does not contradict that assertion.
    - beagle3 14y ago
      > Popular and lack-of-restrictions implies malware is made. That's a more reasonable assertion (but isn't what your original post said, nor was popularity implied). And while it is reasonable, I don't think there's really a way to draw a conclusion here; e.g. in the early 2000s, Apache had something like 6 times the market share of IIS and about 1/30 of the exploits; product design DOES make a difference here. I don't know how easy it is to get someone to run an OSX executable, but a linux virus spreading by email would have to include instructions to the user along the lines of save this file as really_innocent_file, drop into a shell, run chmod a+x really_innocent_file && exec really_innocent_file and you'll see a naked picture of $CELEBRITY.
- CrazedGeek 14y ago
  Why should Microsoft or Apple decide what software I can run on my device? Right now, one of the top stories on HN is Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil Speakers Touch iOS app being removed from the App Store (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4019660 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4019660). If the devices I use subscribed to the "user must be totally protected from themselves" philosophy, then I'd be totally unable to use their product. However, that's thankfully not the case -- I can still purchase and use Airfoil for Mac and Windows, two (currently) mostly open platforms (http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/). Mountain Lion's Gatekeeper, iOS, and the WinRT restrictions make me wary of the future.
  - jeremyarussell 14y ago
    Why should Microsoft or Apple decide what software I can run on my device? I believe their argument is to allow them to retain a semblance of control on their respective platforms. Something about people always blaming the maker of their operating system for the glitches which may or may not actually be the OS's fault, and can tend to be the programmers fault. That's what they say anyways.

ginko 14y ago

Or they can just use MinGW again just like when there was no free version of VS.

raverbashing 14y ago
This But maybe the .NET SDK keeps being free. It's a real pity, but well, Visual Studio didn't have a Express version "back then" before the .NET days (think Visual Studio 6) This may very well be another reason not to use Windows
axusgrad 14y ago
I'm grateful for the continued development of MinGW and MSYS. It makes porting to Linux much easier.
law 14y ago
I used to be devoted VS2010 user, but when C++11 came out, I realized that Microsoft had no intention of incorporating all of the changes into its products in the near future. Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE. Although I'm giving up a considerable amount of usability, the trade off was well worth it.
- jpdoctor 14y ago
  > Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE. I note that eclipse + MinGW works quite well, though I wish the debugger was a little more configurable. I haven't used Code::Blocks, so I can't compare.

alexbell 14y ago

Hopefully university CS courses will stop utilizing Visual Studio now.

thomaslangston 14y ago
I'd rate that as highly unlikely. Microsoft's DreamSpark initiative makes this software free for many schools. https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/
- AlexFromBelgium 14y ago
  I get everything for free.. Server software, IDE, ... and I feel dirtier, and dirtier every time!
joelhaasnoot 14y ago
Back to Java it is... On the other hand many universities have free access to Visual Studio Professional through MSDN-esque licensing programs.
- gouranga 14y ago
  I'd rather they picked Java than C#.
  - de90 14y ago
    How come?
    - gouranga 14y ago
      The language is fine. The framework is not. It has the appearance of being free and open, but a lot of the framework is not and has aggressive licenses. It's easy to creep into those bits unintentionally via ignorance or dependency and then you're stuck with the vendor's extensions (MS) which are hard to shake. (I've been a C# developer since pre-beta days so I'm fairly experienced at getting shot by these things). Java is pretty much open, there are several implementations and most components in their stacks and application stacks on top are 100% pluggable (including J2EE). The same is not the case for anything which involves WCF, ASP.Net etc. Ideally ANSI common lisp would be better as there are several competing implementations and one core standard.

gecko 14y ago

I agree with Ars that the VisualStudio changes are bad, but is there any confirmation that the SDK change isn't temporary/won't have an official solution by the time of shipping? Microsoft has distributed the C++ compiler for years; it'd be very odd for them to do an about-face now. This reminds me off the uproar when Xcode 4 was suddenly a $5 purchase...except that it wasn't for users on the newer OS, when it actually shipped.

randomfool 14y ago
If so this really sucks for build machines- don't want to have to get a VS license just for that.
flomo 14y ago
An Ars commenter posted this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.as... I agree this is really shocking. Even if most Windows devs bought into Visual Studio Pro & MSDN, there was always the free option.

dos1 14y ago

Why is Microsoft so hell-bent on destroying the desktop OS that made them what they are today? The Metro stuff is fine for tablets, but it's a TERRIBLE user experience on a traditional desktop computer. I don't even understand this "everything must be a super simple little app" approach that both Apple and (and now because they're a big copy cat) Microsoft are taking. Is this really what the populace wants? I understand that constraints often yield the best designs, but this is a little crazy. And as far as the dev tooling - that was one area that Microsoft was notably competent. I really can't see how this will benefit them in the long term. Seriously, what is the upside for them? A few more Metro apps? They'll win the battle but lose the war.

ajross 14y ago
It's a disease. Once everyone realized that touch (and mobile more generally) interfaces were going to "replace" the desktop for many day-to-day uses, they all went nuts trying to rearchitect and "evolve" the desktop in that direction. Thus Unity, and Gnome 3, and Lion, and Metro. And most of these things don't even suck, they're just needlessly different. What irks me and others, I suspect, is that the standard WIMP desktop was a mature, well-understood, and very usable metaphor. There's nothing wrong with it.
- JulianMorrison 14y ago
  http://mate-desktop.org http://mate-desktop.org probably won't go all "tablet" any time soon.
- superuser2 14y ago
  For you. For me. Not for grandpa. And there are more grandpas than hackers right now. Immediate visibility of functionality, dropping the filesystem metaphor, standardizing and simplifying the installation of software, and enforcing a consistent UX works better than WIMP for a significant portion of people who would rather not expend effort on making their tools carry out their will. (Only, of course, if their wills are relatively simple. But the intuitiveness vs. power tradeoff is a technology problem, and one there is going to be market pressure to solve.)

drhayes9 14y ago

What's the larger strategy here: "Lose"? I don't understand why they would do this. Seems like people will just shrug and migrate towards the free tools that will help them solve a variety of problems in more interesting ways (e.g. gcc, python, ruby, JS, etc.). Then they'll start migrating towards platforms that make it easy to create those solutions (Linux, OSX).

jaredsohn 14y ago

For those just reading the headline and not the article, it is important to note that Visual Studio 2010 Express will continue to be available for free. (But it won't take advantage of changes to the compiler or the environment.)

marshray 14y ago
Only a fool would base their development environment on the hope that an outdated compiler version will still be downloadable from Microsoft's website into the future. That thing is crippleware anyway, it can't even produce native 64-bit executables. Raise your hand if you're still on a 32-bit operating system.
- JohnTHaller 14y ago
  Well over half of the Windows install base is 32-bit. And 32-bit apps work just fine on 64-bit Windows (excluding system level utilities/drivers, of course).
- jaredsohn 14y ago
  I assume this matters in case you might later need to reinstall? Just make a local copy of the installer after you download it then. Even if you forget to do this, prominent files like this don't disappear from the Internet; at worst you could torrent it. (And that should be legal since I don't think the software expires.)
- brudgers 14y ago
  Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition is still available from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2008-editions/express http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2008-ed... The reason Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is no longer available for download may be found here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual-studio-2005-express http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual-st...

deleted 14y ago

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marshray 14y ago

It seems Microsoft only has one reliable tactical move: leverage the installed base of Windows users. They always fall back on this strategy whenever they want to prop up some other product. For developers, they often provided carrots to encourage them in a certain direction. This tended to work sort of well, as there are always large numbers of new CS students expecting the Microsoft-recommended stack to provide a reliable career ticket. Maybe after they saw what Microsoft just did to Silverlight developers and they're not so eager to follow that path. I never thought that they'd go so far as to actually take the stick to native Win32 developers. How can they not realize how much of their app ecosystem is still built on native code and how much easier it is to get started with that type of development on other platforms? (In every one of these forums one or two people pop up to say how great this will be for developers and you can still use the free Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition to write native code or managed code to write C++. This is not correct, that product is crippleware and the managed code stuff is not anything like native C++.)

drivebyacct2 14y ago

Microsoft still gives away the compilers, SDKs, .NET Runtime/SDKs, no? Is the expectation that an IDE as powerful as Visual Studio be given away for free? Or just that the Windows Store not charge a fee for utilizing their distribution infrastructure? There was a time before Express editions. edit: I failed to scroll through the rest of the article, feel free to ignore me. I would delete but I don't like stranding replies. Apologies.

gecko 14y ago
If you read the article, you will find that MS is currently declining to ship compilers as part of the Windows 8 SDK, which is why Ars is so concerned. But I'd also point out that Visual Studio Express 2010 is indeed free, and far more flexible than its 2011 replacement. This represents a massive policy shift.
- deleted 14y ago
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- hartez 14y ago
  From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.as... (under the section "Updated or Removed Features"): The Windows SDK no longer ships with a complete command-line build environment. The Windows SDK now requires a compiler and build environment to be installed separately. Below that they also list a dozen tools and a bunch of documentation and samples that they also no longer include in the SDK. My guess is that they're just trimming down their SDK downloads. Their SDK has been getting more and more bloated over the years with utilities and samples and stuff that most devs don't need. Completely dropping their command line tools doesn't make sense for anyone who runs build servers; it doesn't make sense for their Powershell tools; and it really doesn't make sense when you consider their recent moves in Open Source. My guess is that the command line tools will be separate downloads from the basic SDK and you'll still be able to write C# code in Notepad++ if you like. The basic SDK will be targeting people writing Metro apps (which they want to encourage by default), but they aren't going to just drop everything else. This is a company that lives and breathes backward compatibility, after all. It's just a case of poor messaging by Microsoft. Remember last year when everyone thought that all Windows 8 apps were going to be Javascript/HTML 5?

deleted 14y ago

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cobrausn 14y ago

"It's very likely that most productivity applications will stick with the desktop for some years to come. The same is true of utility programs, AAA-gaming titles, and a large swath of current Windows software..." My bet is most of these developers currently pay for Visual Studio professional versions anyway. So, not much different for them. Seems like the new restrictions are just for hobby development - they'll be forced to make Metro-style apps, which is what they (MS) wants.

marshray 14y ago
How do you think these professional Windows developers got into it before they turned pro? Hint: most of them didn't learn it in college.
- cobrausn 14y ago
  Now they get into it before turning pro by writing Metro apps. Which is what MS wants, right? More metro apps?
  - marshray 14y ago
    No, more often than not they'll grow up writing Linux, iOS, Mac, and Android tablet apps. I've never actually even seen a WP7 device or a Metro app. Even shrinkwrapped apps coded entirely in dotnet are relatively rare. Even once Windows 8 starts shipping it will many years before Windows developers can ignore the billion-or-so computers still running Windows 7, Server 2k8, and below. Compatibility with the native Win32 app ecosystem is the primary source of Windows' monopoly on desktop computing. Microsoft products rarely succeed outside of that (like any other company). For them to actively try to kill that off is truly insane IMHO.
- mattmanser 14y ago
  Downloaded VB6 for free from Kazaa? Not me of course... I actually remember trying to decide between eclipse and VB6. What whim made me end up choosing the latter now completely escapes me. I think it was because it didn't have those weird {} braces. Ah, C#, the irony.

programminggeek 14y ago

I think that non-windows devs don't realize how much Windows devs LOVE Visual Studio. They will spend however much money it costs to use it. Also, VS is like $500-600? Devs pay that for IntelliJ all day long, so why not VS? Honestly, for a tool you would use all day long at work, $500 is cheap. If you NEED Visual Studio for C++, then it's worth the money. Sure, on Linux and OS X you get free dev tools like XCode and GCC, but MSFT spends a lot of money building these tools, so if they decide they no longer want to subsidize them by offering them free, it's their business. They want devs making Metro apps, not old Win32 C++ apps. If they don't get Metro apps to be built in a big way, Windows 8 tablet edition for human beings 2012 is never going to take off. It makes sense for Microsoft.

excuse-me 14y ago
Indeed - why not make a $2500 MSDN subscription compulsory to develop for the Windows desktop. After all if you are writing apps you can afford it. If they decide that they don't want any apps on Windows other than Office it's their business. But it's a bit of a change from developers-developers-developers!
- batista 14y ago
  >Indeed - why not make a $2500 MSDN subscription compulsory to develop for the Windows desktop. After all if you are writing apps you can afford it. You're being sarcastic, but it would a possible move too. And yes, if you're writing apps you can afford it. It's not like Windows has too few apps, anyway, the could use the price as a quality control to throw one-man software companies out (there goes 99% of shareware).
  - excuse-me 14y ago
    They could introduce an app store for windows8 where only MSFT approved apps could run. They might not get many desktop upgrades from Win7 though !
    - tar 14y ago

gouranga 14y ago

Good. Microsoft can officially go to hell with respect to desktop development after the day I've had today dredging through a debugging job from hell. 75% of my time writing software is: * Watching VS crash miserably. It's just seriously unreliable. * Digging through MSDN trying to find out cryptic errors. * Desperately trying to debug issues with various black boxes (today was 4 hours on a w3wp crash due to a CLR.dll bug related to stack usage resulting in an interesting session with EDITBIN). * Dredging through hotfix lists trying to find out which one solved a problem. * Sitting on the phone for HOURS to MS support who barely speak a work of English these days and don't give a shit - they just want you to fuck off so they can close the case. This is usually because two products won't talk to each other (IE and ClickOnce for example). * WAITING LITERALLY FUCKING HOURS for things to compile and rebuild. * Endless fucking updates that take several minutes to apply, sometimes an hour plus. I WANT TO USE MY FUCKING COMPUTER. Not much: * solving problems of my own. Sorry for the rant but that's why it's really dead. Good riddance. It's all a "me too" as google and apple have app stores. Bring on the web for everything.

keithwarren 14y ago
You are clearly a troll who has either A) Spent no time using VS in real life or B) well...see A
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  It could be related to what he's working on and the tool chain he's using. If you venture out of the box, you can have a very different VS experience. I use C# + nothing else, so everything is very stable for me (occasionally I encounter bugs). Really, Eclipse is the same way (if you don't add any extra plugins, it works very very well!).
- gouranga 14y ago
  Indeed I'm trolling so bad because I've only clocked approximately 18000 hours of using it in real life since the first beta drop of VS.Net 2002 to 22:15 this evening... Yes that's really three zeroes rounded down heavily (8 hours a day, 23 days a month, 12 months a year for 10 years)...

ajasmin 14y ago

I hope they at least let us write console apps. How many lines of code is a Metro "Hello, World"?

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Four. <!doctype html> <meta charset=utf-8> <title>Metro app</title> hello, world<br>

ognyankulev 14y ago

Reminds me of OS/2: a great OS with expensive development tools, and some of us remember how it ended... except that Windows 8 is not so great in comparison with contemporaries. I hope Ubuntu exploits this opportunity.

debacle 14y ago
Ubuntu and Unity are on the outs, I think. Ubuntu is no longer the future of Linux adoption.
marshray 14y ago
I remember reading a Jerry Porunelle column where he described the difference between talking to IBM and Microsoft at COMDEX that year (1991?). IBM was charging something like $400 for its driver development kit at the time. He said "if I go over to the Microsoft booth and tell them I want to write device drivers for Windows, they'll stuff diskettes in my bag". But I'm sure IBM was thinking "if you're making hardware devices why couldn't you afford $400 for a OS/2 driver developer license?" Like Microsoft's dim early understanding of open source software, completely missing the point.

jpdoctor 14y ago

Every other release from microsoft gets committed to obscurity and ridicule. (ME, Vista, ) I was wondering how Win8 was going to self-destruct, thanks for letting me know.

excuse-me 14y ago

" productivity applications will stick with the desktop " So by definition tablet and phone apps are unproductive? Actually that's probably true!

diego_moita 14y ago

From a business perspective this makes sense. C++ is a slowly fading language. Most universities/colleges are abandoning it and those that still cling to it are in an anti-MS mindset. Therefore, not to much to loose here.

marshray 14y ago
FWIW, I've been hearing this since about a year or two after Sun released Java. I'll consider believing it when I see a major web browser or office suite written in something else.
- kibwen 14y ago
  Could have sworn that OpenOffice was Java, but turns out it's C++ after all. In that case, I suppose this is your best hope: https://github.com/mozilla/servo https://github.com/mozilla/servo (Not quite a web browser yet, last I checked its exhaustive feature list was "drawing rectangles". But getting there, slowly.)
  - marshray 14y ago
    Yeah I'm keeping my eye on Rust. I like what I'm seeing so far.
batista 14y ago
>From a business perspective this makes sense. C++ is a slowly fading language. Most universities/colleges are abandoning it and those that still cling to it are in an anti-MS mindset. Don't know where you got that impression. No one in the industry that always used C++ abandons it. That is, any kind of shrink-wrapped software, from Office and Photoshop, to Final Cut Studio, to databases, to games etc. Even the biggest of the web shops rely on it, namely Google and Facebook. If anything there has been a tremendous comeback of C++ in the last year, especially with the new standard. But what you got more wrong is the assumption that MS somehow abandons C++ with this move? Actually MS heavily touts C++/0x for Metro and general windows development. They even had a huge conference touting the return to emphasis to C++ a couple of months ago, titled "back to native".

leke 14y ago

Why are people complaining? This is exactly what one would expect with the MicroSoft OS option. This is their business model -- to make money and then use that money to deliver a user experience. Long term Windows users should not be surprised or offended by this.

snorkel 14y ago

I used be one of those suckers who would fork over $hundreds to Microsoft every few years to keep up with the latest-greatest VC++ and SDKs. Always annoyed me how Microsoft would cripple its affordable tools in ways that I feel actually hurt Windows in the long run. It definitely made me shelve my own Windows projects and get into web development instead, and there's no regrets there.

jlarocco 14y ago

This seems like a huge over reaction, and bordering on misinformation. First of all, for the longest time there were no free versions of Visual Studio for producing any kind of application. Second, even the recent "Express" versions have always been severely crippled. Where were the "No-cost 64-bit development is Dead on Windows 7" when the previous Express versions were released? The Express versions are more like promotional tools than real versions of VS. For any serious development you'll probably need to buy a VS license anyway.

smiler 14y ago
Exactly, Express didn't allow you to manage class library projects, which rules out almost all serious development anyway.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  This is not true, but I don't have the ability to downvote. You can define new class library projects in Express 2010, you can add it to other projects, you can do whatever.
- ramchip 14y ago
  I've built class libraries just fine with Express. Personally, what is a problem for me is that it can't handle multi-language projects.
  - smiler 14y ago
    Apologies - I thought this was a restriction on early versions, maybe they changed it with later ones
marshray 14y ago
Yes, Express has always seemed like something of an amateur development tool useful mainly to students who will graduate before writing 3000 lines of code. But the command line compilers in the SDK and DDK are a different story.
14y ago

brudgers 14y ago

If my VS 2010 Express Edition works, why should I care? Not having the 2011 IDE isn't going to affect my productivity anywhere near the degree that a lack of coding expertise does...it's not like I need to rush out and upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. If I have an excuse to skip an upgrade cycle next year, that's fine with me. Over the long term, I expect Microsoft to continue to provide appropriate tools for the amazing price of free as in beer...again, it's just hard for me to see what someone is complaining about when 2010 Express Edition will continue to be available. Finally, Reading through the comments, there's very little, "I use VS Express and now I'm screwed." I've played around with Windows Phone SDK, and it's easier to produce something that looks good than with WPF or Forms. Though I hate to say it, switching to all Metro for anything desktop related will probably make me more productive not less. (edit) If I want to write a command line utility, I'll continue to use powershell.

clarky07 14y ago

This is an absurd article. Microsoft spends tons and tons of time and money making this product that is Visual Studio. How dare they want people to pay for the full version. Express is a demo, nothing more and nothing less. Be happy they provide it at all.

forrestthewoods 14y ago

This is not a real issue. Visual Studio 2010 will continue to work just fine. As will 2008 or even 2005. Anyone with a business license, even a $50 sole proprietorship, can get every piece of software Microsoft makes for zero dollars via free MSDN subscription [1]. This includes licenses for Office, XP/Vista/Win7 home/pro/ultimate, Visual Studio Ultimate, SQL Server, and so on and so forth. The licenses are free forever and ever. [1] BizSpark program. It's fantastic. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

moistgorilla 14y ago

I am happy about this. Now c++ developers will hopefully look at the other options (Qt Creator, please try it) and normal users will look at other operating systems (ubuntu).

ascendant 14y ago

This really isn't a big deal for me. Mainly because I have no urge to develop for Windows now, nor will I have the urge to do so then. That makes things so much easier.

loso 14y ago

I started off as a hobbyist developer who thought you had to use Visual Studio to develop for Windows. So I pirated a copy because I couldn't afford the real thing. As soon as I figured out that there were cheaper or open source alternatives, I uninstalled and went that route. The Express versions made me look at Windows development again. Even though I can afford the Professional version now, I really don't like to see the way that they are going. I think its boneheaded and might close them off to a new generation of programmers. Open Source and IOS development are already seen as the "cool thing". I don't see how this move gets Microsoft back into the good graces of a younger generation of programmers.

malkia 14y ago

I've found myself a nice sweet spot - Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - it ships with Compiler (MSC 15.0) that can target MSVCRT.DLL It's unusual to use something like the WDK for Desktop Apps, but it works. The compiler is a bit outdated, and there is need for some trickery to get stl7 (internal naming) to work, but if something is missing you can install latest WSDK with it and reuse missing libs/headers from there (platform sdk) At work I do use VS2010 with .sln/.vcxproj, but for my projects I just stay away from this - either makefiles, shell scripts, or some other tool, but not .sln/.vcxproj Then again, I don't do much UI stuff, and If I do - I do it in code. Debugging is there (but a bit harder, then again much more powerful) with WinDBG. There is also OllyDBG. So WDK + SDK (missing pieces) and I'm set. And since I avoid heavy C++ projects, prefer to stick to C it's not problem for me. Occasionally I have to fix simple problems, like variable not declared at the top of the block, which never "C" compilers are okay, but MSC 15.0 is not (the one from WDK 7.1)

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Its an interesting trend. The Ars prose was a bit more breathless than I'd prefer but there is an underlying 'computer as appliance' trend that has been steadily growing for some time. Some folks talk about the 'Post-PC' era but I feel like its more like things that didn't use to require a computer are being aggregated and replaced by something that contains a computer. TV/Book/Catalog/Phone/Game thingy. The canonical example is an iPad. That said, there are more folks who could care less about writing code on a PC doing work or using one, than people who do write code. That fact coupled with the cost of tool maintenance leads Microsoft to choose the route they are on. Computers, and dedicated personal computers, will continue until the heat death of the universe as far as I can tell but the number of folks who need the 'general purpose programmability' seems to have flattened out.

coffeeaddicted 14y ago

As opensource library developer I think this sucks hard. They should at least let the command-line tools working so people can test if software still compiles/runs with their compiler without having to buy a license just for that (Borland C++ is this way these days). VS 2010 staying free is nice, but certainly it's missing some new C++11 features and obviously the amount of missing features will only increase over time. Also I'm wondering something about Metro... so far I haven't found a wrapper for OpenGL, but only Direct3D. Yet another attempt at killing a competing standard?

stan_rogers 14y ago

I hope nobody minds too very much if I inject just a little bit of reality here: we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer). Carpenters, mechanics, hairdressers, even window-washers all have to pay for their tools (and the associated supplies and tool maintenance), and most of them don't get anything like the ROI that a door-to-door ASP.NET site peddler would get pounding the pavement in downtown Lesser Podunk after buying the ultimate all-in version of VS. Maybe it's time we dropped the entitlement attitude.

delian66 14y ago
>>we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer). That is because software development tools like all other software is just data, once written and debugged. Data can be copied at zero cost, which can not be said about physical tools, at least for now.

hereonbusiness 14y ago

It seems that Microsoft is going full Apple.

chj 14y ago

Is this saying that no way to develop c++ applications with VS 11 Express? If so, it is horrible for beginners, and I don't see how MS is going to benefit from this move.

patio11 14y ago

Directly contrary to the thesis of the article: Microsoft is absurdly generous with software licenses if you're going to build on their stack. Even without getting a deal from the inside, you can get on their e.g. BizSpark program, which gets you essentially every software product made by Microsoft for free for three years. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ The only requirements are you have to be working on the MS stack, privately held, and making less than a million bucks.

mythz 14y ago
You're right it is absurd -- to think it's generosity. Whilst most development stacks these days are free in-beer-and-use for life - Microsoft gives you unlimited access to try out all their wares hoping you get hooked on as much of it as possible so when the 3 year is up, you're up for the lump some of your IT development infrastructure. It's a lot harder to move off a platform once you're hooked on it so by doing this Microsoft expects a life-long re-occurring income as your infrastructure upgrades and grows. This 3 year "absurd generosity" is nothing more than a classic bait and switch Marketing strategy - although it does have the pleasant side-effect of not immediately obvious, and is sometimes mistaken for generosity.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  By the time your biz has been developing for Windows for 3 years you should be able to afford the tools. It's not bait-and-switch, it's helping customers use a product to make money with which they can pay for the product - more a "pay only if it works for you" model. Fair enough.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > By the time your biz has been developing for Windows for 3 years you should be able to afford the tools The point is that with their competition, customers are never required to afford the tools. > it's helping customers use a product to make money with which they can pay for the product Again, it's helping customers into a position they'll need to be customers in the future, if they have a future. If they don't, why would Microsoft care?

drivingmenuts 14y ago

If it encourages people to dump Microsoft and develop on other platforms, I'm all for it.

nl 14y ago

Yeah, that's kind of useless if you are a hobby developer releasing a free product.

voodoochilo 14y ago

nice, foss wins:)

mmcconnell1618 14y ago

I see this as just another side-effect of letting a marketing guy (Balmer) take the helm instead of a developer (Gates). As soon as visual studio became segmented into different versions it no longer represented a product designed to increase developer adoption of Windows. Instead, it became a potential profit center. A short-term financial gain at the long-term expense of Windows applications and market share. Companies that are willing to take long term risks are not valued in a world of high frequency trading. Balmer is hoping that by force feeding Windows 8 Metro apps down developer throats he will convince Wall Street that Microsoft isn't dead yet.

terjetyl 14y ago

You already have tons of other super-lightweight great tools enabling you to create great client applications using only javascript and html5 already so server side languages are pretty soon mostly restricted to creating rest services consumed by the same javascript applications. Also when you can just use node.js to create the rest services the need for a tool like visual studio is really fading.