Anybody looking to cheaply get into programming and for some reason wanting to go with a m$ product should look as they have c++, c#, J#, Web development stuff should look into Visual Studio Express, which is free through November 2006.
Though eventually they do get into priced stuff, few if any is M$ products.
One interesting thing was the Xgamestation which lets you develop games (very simple ones) for a very simple console (thats probably way overpriced as it looks like it could probably be done with a couple microcontrollers and a serial interface).
So its a mixed bag, but still free (not opensource) stuff from M$!
You don’t have to use VS.NET, you could just download SharpDevelop from http://www.icsharpcode.net. It’s an open source clone of Visual Studio, and will do almost everything that VS.NET does. The actual compilers and everything are included in the .NET framework (free download through Windows Update). Just look on your system for csc.exe, that’s the C# compiler. All you really need is a decent IDE, and if you know Visual Studio, you should have no problem with SharpDevelop.
I am a little bit confused of the visual studio express offer. Do they mean I can use it as a full version until November and then I can’t use it anymore or do they mean I can download it and use it as long as I want and they take away the possibility to download it in November? I wonder this cause I’m a little bit curius about programming and don’t wanna spend time on learning a program that I can only use a limited time.
As they say here you will not have to pay if you download it before November 7th 2006
Do customers who acquire the Visual Studio Express products during the free promotional pricing period have to pay after the first year if they want to continue to use them?
No, as long as you download Visual Studio Express on or before November 7th 2006, you will not have to pay for it.
