Paul Vick - How does Microsoft stay relevant to next generation of programmers? | TheChannel9Team

rasx
Programmer/Analyst III, Emperor of String.Empty

Yeah: I look forward to seeing a whole new generation of VB users coming up through Linux and Mono or the Mac and Mono. I just don't see a kid with no money trying to buy into a commercial thing.

Dr. Shim
Inaniloquent monomathical people inlapidate me.

The issue for me has been: How easy is it to do what I want it to do? I absolutly love .NET, since it's so easy to make it do what I want! I used to have a Linux computer (got rid of it since I was moving, unfortunatly). I never found anything in it easy to do, and it took me a much longer time to do stuff with it.Of course, that doesn't just include maintaining the beast.

What I want to see is the Visual Studio Express products to remain free. Their easy to use, powerful, use .NET 2.0 (keeping people who want to learn the technology in the front), and right now is free. The tutorials and documentation is great as well.

There's no reason not to keep it free! Microsoft can afford that, I'm sure. And it's anwesome learning tool, IMHO.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Agreed. Express should be free. It's free now, it should still be free come RTM. Just stick a "not for commercial usage" EULA in there and it won't cost MS any money.

In fact, it'd probably make them money. If we have Joe Hobby-Programmer who uses VB.NET Express at home (for free), and he gets hired to do some project for a company, naturally he'll want to stick with what he knows, at which point a full license for VS2005 will be needed.

If MS is going to charge money for Express, it's a big mistake. It doesn't matter is they charge $100 or 10 cents, just the fact that you have to pay anything, regardless of how little, scares off a lot of people, especially teenagers who don't have a credit card (which I suspect is a big target audience). I started programming when I was 10. If GW-BASIC had not come with DOS back then, if I had to pay even one old-fashioned Guilder for that, I probably wouldn't have done it.

Express should, no, must be free!

Catatonic
You're not shy one horse. You brought two too many

I think the Express products will be attractive to people who would otherwise use a pirated copy of Visual Studio. A smart kid can make it pay for itself quickly. But time will tell.

Remember that the compilers (C++, C# and VB) are free, and you can get a free debugger, free documentation, all kinds of free SDK's, free IDE (SharpDevelop) and more.