4 ms·
"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 title
by 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 agoHow 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 agoNow they get into it before turning pro by writing Metro apps. Which is what MS wants, right? More metro apps?
- marshray 14y agoNo, 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 agoDownloaded 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.
- marshray 14y agoWhy any platform vendor would charge money for even the most powerful possible development tools is completely beyond me. All I can figure is that it makes sense to non-hackers who aren't competent to run a technology company.
- flomo 14y agoNote you could buy a copy of VB for about $100. Which wasn't a bad deal considering it came with a thousand pages of manuals & tutorials.
- mattmanser 14y agoAt the time I was a hobbyist straight out of uni where £100 was rather a lot of money (yeah, they always convert dollars to pounds over here, greedy buggers). And I didn't need a manual as I picked up a 'learn VB6 in 30 days book'. Classic. The trouble with all these 'cheap cause you use it all the time' tools is that to start with you don't want to use them all the time. So they're relatively very expensive. For example I was just re-learning programming to prove a point to my boss that the internal IT program sucked.
- tar 14y agoStudents can always use https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/ .
- aguynamedrich 14y agoThat's not always the case. I have grown overwhelmingly comfortable writing all my utilities and demos in Visual Studio, but I no longer work for a Microsoft shop, which is where I've always gotten my VS licenses. On any new computer I purchase for myself or at a non MS-centric job, I rely on Visual Studio Express, and this news really sucks for me.
- marshray 14y agoFor years I did all my hobby development with the SDK command line C++ compiler. But I do that on Linux now anyway. Every time I think about making some of it portable to MSVC again MS pulls something like this to remind me why I left.
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