Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Visual Studio.Net for free

Yes, many of us do not know this fact but there are free editions of the mighty Visual Studio IDE, the languages: Visual C++, Visual C#, Visual Basic and SQL Server. It's called the 'Express Editions'.

Visual Studio Express Editions (2005, 2008, etc) are free versions of Visual Studio professional editions with limitations on some professional and enterprise features. Targets of Express Editions are mostly beginners, hobbyist and students.

This very good strategy of Microsoft is definitely targeted to reach the mass market and make more programmers divert to or become Visual Studio developers. Open source tools, languages and operating systems are causing Microsoft to loose ground at an alarming rate over the last few years. The free editions are one of few and good steps of Microsoft against it.

Whatever the reasons for the express editions are, it's a great news for beginners, students and hobbyists. I've used C# express edition (2005) for a moderate sized application earlier this year and hardly noticed any significant changes. You can easily switch between the Visual Studio professional and express editions too. So, if you begin developing an application in Express Edition and want to move to professional edition later, it's a piece of cake!

Web site & downloads: http://www.microsoft.com/express/.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

tht was good info

thank you