Microsoft is making life for developers harder in Windows 8

[wrldwzrd89]

http://arstechnica.com/information-...op-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8/

This is NOT good news... especially for people like me, who have zero interest in the Metro platform. Microsoft is not only restricting VS 11 Express to Metro development only, but they're also taking out the compiler toolchain in its entirety in the Windows 8 SDK, so the restrictions cannot be bypassed. The fact that MS charges $400 - $500 for VS 11 Pro, the cheapest edition that can create desktop programs, does not help matters any. This move hurts open source devs the most, and even more so when the improvements in VS 11 are taken into account.

 

[DingleButt]

It the free version that new developers would use I would think. They want these people developing the new types of Apps they consider to be the future.

I dont see the problem or why developers lives are going to get harder.
Can you not use the current version?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

It the free version that new developers would use I would think. They want these people developing the new types of Apps they consider to be the future.

I dont see the problem or why developers lives are going to get harder.
Can you not use the current version?

Microsoft's giving people a choice between a free compiler and a good compiler that wasn't there before. The C++ compiler got support for a bunch of C++11 features... but you won't be able to use them without paying.

 

[DingleButt]

Microsoft's giving people a choice between a free compiler and a good compiler that wasn't there before. The C++ compiler got support for a bunch of C++11 features... but you won't be able to use them without paying.

The point of the free version is to get people into their system. The system they want people in is the Metro environment. It makes sense to me that they would make the free version support where they want dev's to go.

And as for the new features, why are they required to provide those for free when it would not benefit their position?

 

[ellaimac]

I guess that the growth of Mac users worldwide begins here.

By 2014, Everyone would be using Mac, VERY few will use PC.

 

[smoledman]

I guess that the growth of Mac users worldwide begins here.

By 2014, Everyone would be using Mac, VERY few will use PC.

No basis in fact there, just conjecture.

 

[chrono1081]

I agree with the OP this is a bit ridiculous. There are MANY students who use the free version because its not worth it to pay for the regular version.

Microsoft was on this big drive a few years ago to get more people into coding by offering free tools and this is going backwards from that.

 

[smoledman]

I agree with the OP this is a bit ridiculous. There are MANY students who use the free version because its not worth it to pay for the regular version.

Microsoft was on this big drive a few years ago to get more people into coding by offering free tools and this is going backwards from that.

Irrelevant. 99% of students are doing mobile app development, so getting a free tool for creating Metro apps makes perfect sense. Older developers with resources can afford to re-up for the VS Pro.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I agree with the OP this is a bit ridiculous. There are MANY students who use the free version because its not worth it to pay for the regular version.

Microsoft was on this big drive a few years ago to get more people into coding by offering free tools and this is going backwards from that.

I am just going to point out students can get the pro version of Visual studio for free from Microsoft by going to dreamspark.com. All that is required is an edu address.

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Irrelevant. 99% of students are doing mobile app development, so getting a free tool for creating Metro apps makes perfect sense. Older developers with resources can afford to re-up for the VS Pro.

ummm no most students tend to in school do the desktop style of things. Very few students relatively speaking head the way of mobile apps. Also spoken like someone who have never tried to really make a full feature mobile app. Speaking from experince it is much harder than making a good desktop computer app.

 

[smoledman]

I am just going to point out students can get the pro version of Visual studio for free from Microsoft by going to dreamspark.com. All that is required is an edu address.

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ummm no most students tend to in school do the desktop style of things. Very few students relatively speaking head the way of mobile apps. Also spoken like someone who have never tried to really make a full feature mobile app. Speaking from experince it is much harder than making a good desktop computer app.

Just looking at the latest course listings at universities, mobile app development is very prominent. Any 14 year old interested in programming is doing iPhone development first.

 

[roadbloc]

I guess that the growth of Mac users worldwide begins here.

By 2014, Everyone would be using Mac, VERY few will use PC.

Very very unlikely.

 

[boss.king]

I guess that the growth of Mac users worldwide begins here.

By 2014, Everyone would be using Mac, VERY few will use PC.

Lol. It's gonna take years and years before Apple even makes a strong foothold in the computer market.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Just looking at the latest course listings at universities, mobile app development is very prominent. Any 14 year old interested in programming is doing iPhone development first.

There is a reason I said relatively speaking. Those courses are almost always electives and not required so it stays lower.

I do not count 14 year Olds as vast majority of them would fail the making full featured app.

 

[maflynn]

I guess that the growth of Mac users worldwide begins here.

By 2014, Everyone would be using Mac, VERY few will use PC.

No, Macs only occupy a small percentage of the PC marketshare and its not growing at a rate that would overtake HP and DELL.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

The point of the free version is to get people into their system. The system they want people in is the Metro environment. It makes sense to me that they would make the free version support where they want dev's to go.

And as for the new features, why are they required to provide those for free when it would not benefit their position?

This move hurts open-source and hobbyist developers the most - which is silly, since they contribute just as much, if not more, to Windows's software ecosystem as the big corporate developers who can afford VS Pro and Ultimate do. On the one hand I can understand Microsoft encouraging developers to make Metro apps if at all possible, since that's their "new thing". On the other hand, though, there's a huge list of applications and application categories (games being the biggest) that simply don't make sense in the Metro world, due to being incompatible with at least some aspects of Metro. Sure, there are ways for the hobbyists and open source devs to work around these limitations (best solution I've found: Use MinGW-w64 and CodeBlocks instead of Visual Studio; both products are free, but don't work together "our of the box" - some manual configuration is needed to get things working); these require adjustments to developer workflow, though, which results in wasted "software cycles" spent on retooling. This, in my mind, is why I'm 100% against the decision by Microsoft to do things the way they are going forward. Heck, Metro for desktops is a dumb idea to begin with...