The more accessible the grass route tools the greater the chance of adoption. Adoption for Win8 / RT maybe acceptable with the new Express options but frankly I don't see C# developers of the future applying for licences for IDEs to compile their software. They'll just adopt a different more (immediately) accessible platform. Companies will struggle to recruit for server hosted line of business applications. The ecosystem will suffocate. Managers and engineers will consider different platforms as part of their due diligence, as a result I predict less Windows licences will be sold.
Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
71–80 of 81 posts
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#72Although I think HTML5 is actually a pretty lousy software stack for application development, I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to the arguments that the evolution of the web is absolutely essential for the survival of free & open computing. It was bad enough that their mobile platforms are so locked down, but with Apple and Microsoft now turning the screws ever tighter on their previously open desktop platforms…
Will the web be the most "open" platform in the long run though? What happens if services like amazon AWS put smaller hosts out of business and services like facebook become so ubiquitous that they are considered the "gateway" to the web and most web services are built on top of these APIs?
I've been thinking about this for a while - if they (or we?) break this internet we have, can we make a new one, hidden from those who would break it? Would it require new infrastructure or could it be hidden inside the 'normal' net?
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#73Walled garden platforms are taking over partly because all operating systems are fundamentally broken with regard to privilege isolation, security, and application installability/uninstallability. The fact is that for the average non-techie user, allowing unsigned/untested apps results in a system full of malware and crappy software that destroys it. That's because the OS is not isolated from apps, and apps are not i…
> The next step is to utterly forbid "installers" and make everything work this way, and to add stronger privilege isolation and organized APIs for apps to talk to each other.
I agree and disagree with you. I would be awesome if I could restrict apps and forbid installers. I'd also like to be able to run arbitrary apps as forbidden to use the internet and make them think they are reading/writing to /some/path/ but they are really reading/writing to /app/sandbox/some/path. I'd love the option.
But then there are problems with that as well. Want to make an app plugin? Nope. Want to share libraries? Nope. Want to talk to an app? Hope it's got a canonical port number.
So I don't think enforcing boundaries is the way to go. I'd love to see other opinions and whether or not there are any alternatives, though.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#74Walled garden platforms are taking over partly because all operating systems are fundamentally broken with regard to privilege isolation, security, and application installability/uninstallability. The fact is that for the average non-techie user, allowing unsigned/untested apps results in a system full of malware and crappy software that destroys it. That's because the OS is not isolated from apps, and apps are not i…
> The next step is to utterly forbid "installers" and make everything work this way, and to add stronger privilege isolation and organized APIs for apps to talk to each other. I agree and disagree with you. I would be awesome if I could restrict apps and forbid installers. I'd also like to be able to run arbitrary apps as forbidden to use the internet and make them think they are reading/writing to /some/path/ but th…
I think there are creative solutions to this. Like I said: there would need to be a well-designed inter-app API.
Plugins for instance could be handled like firmware updates to a device. Send the image to the app via the API. "Here is your plugin..." Or some apps could have their own plugin stores, ala the Chrome store. There are different ways of handling this.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#75This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. With BizSpark or similar, you're looking at something like $400 total to get as many copies of VS.NET as you need for your entire team. And all the other dev tools everybody needs. And Windows licenses for all their boxes. And Office. And everything else Microsoft makes. So…
> This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. For C/C++ hobbyists and Open Source developers, MSVC used to be the compiler of choice on Windows. The Ruby community has embraced mingw more and more, and I think everyone else will (and should) do the same. Breaks my heart because MSVC has good C++11 support. I don't thi…
>> I don't think any professional will care about this. In fact, it's probably good news for them (us). Any barrier to entry means slightly less competition.
I think it's unfortunate that the professionals would see this as a good thing. New developers to the MS Stack can bring a fresh perspective with newer, more unique approaches to solving problems. That leads to a healthier ecosystem.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of us are also budding students who like experimenting with different things and price is most likely a barrier to entry (it sure it for me).
Students can get VS and other MS software for free through various programs such as MSDNAA
The software distributed through MSDNAA is (1) always a little outdated and (2) only for non-commercial development.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Will the web be the most "open" platform in the long run though? What happens if services like amazon AWS put smaller hosts out of business and services like facebook become so ubiquitous that they are considered the "gateway" to the web and most web services are built on top of these APIs?
I've been thinking about this for a while - if they (or we?) break this internet we have, can we make a new one, hidden from those who would break it? Would it require new infrastructure or could it be hidden inside the 'normal' net?
Gopher.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#78This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. With BizSpark or similar, you're looking at something like $400 total to get as many copies of VS.NET as you need for your entire team. And all the other dev tools everybody needs. And Windows licenses for all their boxes. And Office. And everything else Microsoft makes. So…
still closer to free than it is to a day's worth of your bill rate That's a really fucked up definition of "free", which gets repeated often by Windows developers, but it isn't anything more than a delusion. And btw, remember that not all of us live on Silicon Valley's fat salaries ;-)
I got a 2 year volume license for Windows 7, plus 2 years' MSDN (various Visual Studios, plus old OSs, plus useless junk), for £1,000. This is very definitely not closer to free than my daily rate - since I don't have the Silicon Valley-style salary that I'd like to have either! - but compared to other business costs I have incurred, I think it relatively reasonable.
I paid £160 for a single copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, for example - 1 licence for 1 PC! And my accountant costs me more per year. (etc.)
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#79This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. With BizSpark or similar, you're looking at something like $400 total to get as many copies of VS.NET as you need for your entire team. And all the other dev tools everybody needs. And Windows licenses for all their boxes. And Office. And everything else Microsoft makes. So…
> This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. For C/C++ hobbyists and Open Source developers, MSVC used to be the compiler of choice on Windows. The Ruby community has embraced mingw more and more, and I think everyone else will (and should) do the same. Breaks my heart because MSVC has good C++11 support. I don't thi…
I don't actually care that much about compilers - as others have mentioned, there are several options out there. I also am not particularly concerned about updated C++ feature support - the reality is that there are still a ton of really terrible windows developers out there who aren't familiar with the windows application model, security models, best practices, and have no idea how servicing works.
When people start complaining about not having functors, or some other language feature, I tend to get a little irritated, because this is not the big problem with software development on Windows.
If someone doesn't want to use VS2008 Express, I will note that there is always WDK, which last I checked shipped with cl.exe, and will almost certainly continue to do so.
Re: Microsoft Pulling Free Development Tools for Windows 8 Desktop Apps
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This doesn't really seem like news to me. I've never met anybody doing real development in the .NET world who didn't have a paid copy of VS.NET. For C/C++ hobbyists and Open Source developers, MSVC used to be the compiler of choice on Windows. The Ruby community has embraced mingw more and more, and I think everyone else will (and should) do the same. Breaks my heart because MSVC has good C++11 support. I don't thi…
I don't actually care that much about compilers - as others have mentioned, there are several options out there. I also am not particularly concerned about updated C++ feature support - the reality is that there are still a ton of really terrible windows developers out there who aren't familiar with the windows application model, security models, best practices, and have no idea how servicing works. When people start…
As I said, I don't think existing professionals will care about this. But people are not born as professionals. Many end up that way because they entered an ecosystem for fun. The functor playground I grew up on has a "suits only" sign now.