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Programming Microsoft Operating Systems Software Windows IT Technology

Microsoft Offers Beta of Visual Studio 2005 92

Posted by timothy from the decorate-your-hospital-room-for-free dept.
nanodude writes "According to DimensionXC, Microsoft is offering a free beta version of Visual C++ Express 2005 among other programs in the Visual Studio 2005 Express Suite. Seems like a good deal to me!"
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Microsoft Offers Beta of Visual Studio 2005 More

Microsoft Offers Beta of Visual Studio 2005

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  • Where's the negative spin to this Microsoft story?

    Maybe something about how they offer the first hit for free?
    • Where's the negative spin to this Microsoft story?

      I'll raise you a positive Apple spin? Xcode [apple.com] is free. Always has been. We're not talking xcode "lite" or "express" either, this is the full biscuit - the same thing they use in house. Plus all the lovely performance tools [apple.com].

      Cheers,
      Dave
      • It's free if you happen to be running 10.3. Unless you've bought a computer from them in the last year the price is $129 for the OS upgrade (which I purchased specifically for XCode).

        I wonder why the x86 (via VirtualPC) can be emulated so well by (the former Connectix) software but PPC instructions cannot be done on the x86 architecture? I run OS 10.3 on my G4 733MHz and it's very fast and my iBook 900 (G3) runs it well too.

        • Re:Not quite (Score:4, Informative)

          by GregChant ( 305127 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @10:23PM (#10949571)
          It's free if you happen to be running 10.3. Unless you've bought a computer from them in the last year the price is $129 for the OS upgrade (which I purchased specifically for XCode).

          You wasted $129. You can download XCode for free from ADC [apple.com]. Just need to register for an ADC Basic account, which is free as well.

          • I think his point was that XCode only works with OS X 10.3 which costs $129. This is a moot point of course considering you would have to buy Windows to use Visual Studio.*

            * I suppose you could putz with WINE to get it working under Linux, but why?

          • Evil: compilation's errors!!! (Score:1, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Metrowerks's CodeWarrior v9 for Windows $499 is a powerful tier-1 compiler, debugger and & IDE.

            Visual Studio is an awful tier-5 graphical environment.

    • it's not free, the cost is your immortal soul.

    • Those who whine about the anti-MS attitude of Slashdotters are just as annoying as those who have a blind anti-MS attitude. Take your bitching elsewhere, please.

  • Nice Journalistic Integrity, there. (Score:5, Informative)

    by It's People! ( 819150 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:03PM (#10949104)
    First of all, that beta's been free for a really long time. I've had it for months.

    Second, the website that "reported" it is a new forum that has only 1-2 posts. This is a blatant attempt at spamming the site to get more members.

    Nice work, editors.

    • I've known about it since July 20th.

    • Re:Nice Journalistic Integrity, there. (Score:5, Informative)

      by nanodude ( 826755 ) <velocity5957&gmail,com> on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:57PM (#10949395)
      As the author of this story I would like to first off say that I do personally know the operator of the website (www.platinumcheats.com) however I did not contact him before submitting this story to /.. While browsing his website I notice the post concerning Visual Studio and, after searching /. for a similar article I realized that no one had posted about this before. I did not in anyway intend to advertise or publisize his website or spam /. but merely to post information that I came across and felt that others would benefit from. I did not look into the date of the beta release before posting. I appologize for any misunderstanding.
    • "Announcement: Welcome to DimensionXC
      Posted: viking7200 @ Wed Nov 24, 2004 12:52 pm
      Hey guys, welcome to DimensionXC, a brand new forum for programmers. We need more users, so tell your friends about this site and get them to join!"

      The site opened five days ago. What the hell, are the editors asleep or something?

  • Nothing new, really. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shufler ( 262955 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:03PM (#10949106) Homepage
    Microsoft has offered beta versions of most of their previous development environments. Usually once the real product ships, they also release the compiler for free hidden in the depths of the MSDN. They do this to help promote people to make Windows Software, as some us us crafty people can't afford Visual Studios.

    That, or it's just a way to get you locked into the next version of VS. Time to port all the old software!

    • Re:Nothing new, really. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They definately do lock you in, it expires after a certain amount of time.
    • They are intentionally supposed to be cheap or even free, and meant for beginnning developers. Like the way Delphi does it.

      Generally, the way it works is that if you want to access external data sources, like a business would, you have to buy the IDE.

  • Wonder why... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 )
    Microsoft Visual C++ studio, where C is for crack.

    Remember kids, the first hits always free.

    Read the Oldnews [virtualdub.org] in VirtualDub's site.. Go down to the Compairson between VC++6, ++Net2003, and what he wants.

    --SNIP--

    This, historically, is why I have not bothered to use MMX/SSE/SSE2 compiler intrinsics in VirtualDub -- the code generation sucks. The VC6 processor pack was quite bad and tended to generate about two move instructions for every ALU op; this was improved in VS.NET 2003, but it still isn't able to

    • Re:Wonder why... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rjshields ( 719665 )
      the code generation sucks

      That's not really the most important part of an IDE for most people. Things like code refactoring, auto-completion and hints, integration with documentation and source control and general text editing capabilities are probably higher on people's IDE wish list. Besides, the compiler is a part that can be changed if required.
      • True, and perhaps this part of the discussion is a bit off topic, but I know I've heard things about how the underlying code generation of the VC++ Compiler was more optimized and blah blah blah... While right now I'm not concerned with optimizations there have been times where I'm working with algorithms that every little tic counts. In that sense I want to know that the compiler that's writing my code is doing a good job for me so I don't have to pop the hood and do it myself. (or rather learn how to do i
  • but does it run on linux?
  • We all do understand that MS betas have a limited life span, right? Good deal? Well, as long as it works, but... MS betas eventually die.
    • No, actually "we" don't. Mind pointing out that section of the MS site? I couldn't find a thing about an expiration date or that this was a "time limited" beta.
      • No, actually "we" don't. Mind pointing out that section of the MS site? I couldn't find a thing about an expiration date or that this was a "time limited" beta.

        I take it you have NEVER installed a Microsoft Beta before???

        Thanks for your input!

        • Yes, I have, many times. And they've always been labeled "time sensitive" or some such at the time of download IF they're time sensitive. Of course you could have simply pointed out that this one was in the EULA you don't see until install time, like an Anonymous Coward did in another reply, but that would be provided useful information so I'm sure you can't have that.

  • Express Bits (Score:2, Informative)

    by Exostatic ( 218979 )
    Yes.. All of the express bits have been free since their intial announcement about 5 months ago. These bits are designed for the hobbyist and will be freely available once VS2005 is offically released with the agreement that they cannot be used for commecial development.

    While they have not been designed to run on Linux the code you write may run, and it possibly these will run to if you are determined enough to find a solution
    • Not just hobbyists, but authors as well. Many a book is published before or right around the ship date of the actual product, and those first releases are all based on the beta version(s).

  • Lisp (Score:5, Funny)

    by brilinux ( 255400 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:22PM (#10949192) Journal
    I am still waiting for Microsoft to release Visual Lisp++ so that I can take full advantage of lisp in Windows.

  • Where's the Form editor? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SamNmaX ( 613567 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:45PM (#10949317)
    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but why, oh why, does Visual C++ still not have a form editor like Visual Basic or Visual C#? Sure, it has the dialog editor, but does that's not even close to the same thing. This is something Borland supported quite a while ago with Borland C++ Builder, and was fairly nice.

    C++ is a popular enough language to justify the cost for Microsoft, however I get the impression that they don't truly care about C++ and would like to replace both it and VB with C#.

    Horray for progress.

    • That's what I always wondered. The world of VB was lightyears ahead of VC++. Press one button to compile an entire form, damn VB was good. Of course things might be different now, as I haven't touched visual studio since 6.0. I thought .net was the future and that was it. Why are they going back to 2005 year count etc?!

    • Microsoft has adapted C++ to .Net with the same skill and elegance that they used when they adapted C++ to COM. In other words, it's a mess. I have programmed in both C# and managed C++ and its easier for an experienced C++ programmer to learn C# than managed C++. Even Microsoft realizes their mistakes and are correcting some of them in C++ 2005 (the beta is essentially 2005). The main advantage of C++ .Net is that it will be easier to port over existing C++ applications. New development should be in C
    • Visual Studio .NET 2003 has a Windows Forms (.NET only) editor, exactly the same as VB and C#.
    • I always got the impression that Microsoft sees C++ in the .NET world (which, to them, is the ONLY world, now) as a sort of "power" language. It's not for high-level, simple stuff like forms... it's for games or... well, really intense stuff. So they just don't see it as making sense.

      Personally, I think this is just another example of Microsoft failing to see what people REALLY want, and instead seeing their own idealized version of things. But, then, they certainly aren't an unsuccessful company, so wh

    • Re:Where's the Form editor? (Score:5, Informative)

      by atlasheavy ( 169115 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @04:09AM (#10950956) Homepage
      VC++ most certainly *does* have a Winforms designer. You have to create a Managed C++ Winforms project in order to take advantage of it, though. Otherwise it just ain't gonna work for you ;-). If you create a native app you can still use the old-school RC file editor, although my take on it is that it's just easier to hack RC files by hand (I've spent the past two weeks doing nothing but hand-editing RC files at work).
    • Here is the link to the free-as-in-beer, non-commercial only version of Borland's product (C++BuilderX Personal [borland.com]). Soul-stealing registration required.
    • why, oh why, does Visual C++ still not have a form editor like Visual Basic or Visual C#?

      If you use straight Windows API, you don't think about Forms and events. Instead, you have windows, dialogs, window messages, you know, the usual WndProc stuff. Borland C++ Builder extends the C++ language and implements it's own run-time library, VCL, which is how you get to override OnButtonClick().

      The price you pay for handy stuff like OnOpen() and Form.width = 100 is usually speed and memory usage, because y

  • Might eventually be completely free (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:51PM (#10949357) Homepage
    Microsoft is very slowly finding its direction. The success of any OS platform depends in a large part on its developer community.

    With the development tools free, a developer and application base forms naturally, that can better sustain any given company. After all Linux started with gcc.

    The cost of VisualC has been obscene, with Microsoft assuming win32 developers have no other option. Nowadays we've got wxwindows, QT, the bcc and intel compilers, all free (except QT) and of better quality, and ticked off developers can easily switch to OSX and Linux. Gates has acknowledged Microsoft made a mistake in not rallying a developer base around it.

    Free VisualC... hmmm if they release such a thing it would be the culmination of the 'developers,developers,developers' we've been hearding of...
    • That's what they're planning with the "express" versions of the compilers/IDE. VS Express [microsoft.com]
    • Nowadays we've got wxwindows, QT, the bcc and intel compilers, all free (except QT) and of better quality, and ticked off developers can easily switch to OSX and Linux.

      Mostly I would agree, except I wouldn't categorize Borland bcc tools into "better quality", unless there's something I don't know (which is a good chance). From my experience using C++ templates, MS VC++ has provided better support for a loooooong time. (I've never used Intel compiler but assume it has better support than Borland -- aren't

      • I've found the Intel compilers to be truly excellent -- Both the front-end and back-end of them. They do a great job on even the most complex templated metaprogrammed stuff -- code that makes the MS compiler fall over with an internal compiler error. And their code generation is way ahead of everyone else. And they listen carefully to bug reports and fix bugs on a regular basis. I've never seen a bug fix from MS on their compilers.
        • Microsoft provide service packs for VS from time to time. They are of course a bunch of compiler, RTL and IDE bugfixes rolled into a bundle. I don't deny the quality of the Intel compilers; after all, they know the processor pretty well and providing good developer support is important in maintaining a customer base, especially in the embedded arena.
    • o_O How did you mention all of those and not mention cygwin?

    • Re:Might eventually be completely free (Score:5, Informative)

      by _undan ( 804517 ) <dan@undumb.com> on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @12:00AM (#10950049)
      Comparing Visual C++ to bcc is like comparing Kazaa to ftp.exe. It's more than just a compiler/linker - it's an entire IDE.

      Microsoft does have a free C++ linker/compiler sans-IDE. You can get it here. [microsoft.com]

    • Re:Might eventually be completely free (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The price of the entire suite is nothing compared to the price of a programmer to use it.
      • That is quite true in a commercial setting - I use [overly] high priced embedded compilers ($5000+) at work on a daily basis.

        It's a different story at home though. If I want to write some code for my own use, be it on Windows, some UNIX variant or an embedded device, I don't have that sort of money to throw around. So I end up with GCC on my BSD box and VC++.net 2002 Standard on my Win2k box. For embedded work I use the appropriate flavour of GCC or IAR, both free.

        So, in the end my experience reflects wh

    • You forgot about Fltk http://www.fltk.org/ [fltk.org] for your interfaces needs (free and portable) and Dev-C++ from Bloodshed software http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html [bloodshed.net] which is a great IDE for windows (which is also free!). Of course, you don't get all the fonctionnality of Visual C++ in one package, but it does the job without problems (at least for me :)
    • The betas of these developer tools are free, the final product (Visual X Express) will not be. Last I heard, the price of the Visual Express products is going to be something like $50 to $100 each. To be completely honest, it's unlikely it'll be free anyway. To do so would kill Borland, who Microsoft is keeping on life support just so they can say they have competition in developer tools on Windows. The only product in that lineup that Microsoft has said will be free is the SQL Server Express, which is

  • free stuff from MS (Score:3, Funny)

    by itwerx ( 165526 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:58PM (#10949402) Homepage
    Coolness!
    I haven't heard an offer that good since I ran into the Borg Queen...
    'Course around here that might translate to high praise. :)

  • [knee-jerk linux freak subject] (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zarf ( 5735 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @09:59PM (#10949414) Journal
    [insert microsoft bashing statement]

    [something witty about linux]

    [ressurect old joke for punchline]

  • zerg (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Monday November 29, 2004 @10:26PM (#10949578) Homepage
    pre-emptive: If all you know about Microsoft dev tools comes from Visual C++ 6, then give these newer tools a try. You might be impressed.

    And if not, hey, it was worth a shot.
    • This is Slashdot... all we think we know about these tools comes from QuickBasic ;)
    • > If all you know about Microsoft dev tools comes from Visual C++ 6, then give these newer tools a try. You might be impressed.

      We were using VC++ 6 at work. Then we migrated to 7.1 (a.k.a .NET 2004).
      The second thing that I noticed (after spending countless hours to modify the solution and project files so would recognize the source-controlled files correctly) is that the code browser has been severely crippled.

      No more "call graph", "caller graph", etc.

      Oh yes, the VS team has graciously admitted that

  • Pure Evil (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by flonker ( 526111 )
    I think the point we're all missing is how evil Mr. Hero looks. http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/visualc/imag es/Hero.jpg [microsoft.com]

  • MS ABSOLUTELY DESPISES C++ (Score:5, Interesting)

    by was_ms_now_linux ( 834256 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @01:46AM (#10950510) Homepage
    MS Absolutely Despises C++ While I do believe the MS Visual C++ product is a very convenient form of C++, and I've been a daily user for the last ten years, it would be a simple case of cheerleading to believe that MS management has any desire to continue this product. If it were not for the ABSOLUTE DEMANDS of keepers of huge C++ source code bases such as ISV's (those who produce software for resale) and some of the more tech-savvy Fortune 500 customers (those wishing to preserve the option to vacate the MS platform in the event of some unforeseen future innovation - such as an equally suitable and maybe even free OS J ), MS management would have scrapped C++ as a product offering the day that Visual Basic 6 shipped. Bring in the MS consultants or top partners and they will tell you it will bankrupt your organization if you try to use it. Consider these facts: * Proprietary languages are key to ensuring customers don't skip upgrades from one version of Windows to another. MS will always concoct a plausible new marketing line to justify why unwitting customer companies should switch from one language to another - with the new version being completely incompatible with any viable competitive platform. * All MS products are written using C++. * Dropping external support for C++ and enforcing .Net as the only development environment for Windows lets MS move in on more and more new industry-specific markets- or at least choose the players who succeed - in vertically focused (sector or industry-focused) markets. * Proprietary development environments are CRITICAL to getting Platform/OS customers to pay for every version upgrade. Without Proprietary Development Environments, customers would leapfrog one or more version upgrades. * For a Real-World Example: If you wrote a data access layer/sub-system against the ODBC C-API ten years ago and it would compile today and still perform better than the most optimally designed .Net data access sub-system. I know this first-hand from experience. On the flip-side, if you chose the MS language du-jour, you would have been forced to re-write your data access layer at least four times - in the same time period. So, the moral of the story is: KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON CODING IN C++!!! STILL THE FASTEST, STILL THE MOST PORTABLE, AND STILL THE LOWEST COST - OVER A PERIOD OF THREE YEARS OR MORE!!!
    • While it's true that Microsoft will always go for lock in, and their own language makes that easier (C#), I hate to admit it, but their 7.1 C++ compiler is quite good, and compiles every wacky template I throw at it. It's supposedly been able to compile Andresceu's Loki library, as well as Boost++, both very taxing on compilers. I think this is more a case of Herb Sutter's championing than anything else. So while you're probably right, at least their C++ compiler does kick ass.

      For the best example of outsp
      • I agree, it is a pretty decent tool - in terms of language suport and ease of use. I do think the code generated is often sub-par though (see other member posts on this thread). But, having said that, once Linux gets a dev environment this convenient to use, I will be a daily user of it as well. Doug Hettinger

    • Re:MS ABSOLUTELY DESPISES C++ (Score:4, Informative)

      by alexo ( 9335 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @11:17AM (#10953285) Journal

      Oh, yea!
      They despise so much that they hired Herb Sutter [www.gotw.ca] to work on it.
      • They had to hire Herb Sutter since their compiler support had fallen so far behind others and key customers probably raised hell that they would not recognize the new savior C# and VB.Net. I like the IDE and the organization, but the compiler has always been behind others and most shops use many other vendors' higher performance libraries. The fact is, C# has not taken off according to plans. Doug Hettinger (dh_75032@yahoo.com)
    • 1.) First, you can't talk about how Microsoft despises C++. Microsoft is a corporation made up of tens of thousands of employees. Some of them may hate it, some love it, the majority probably don't care one way or the other.

      2.) Prior to the introduction of the .Net languages, VC6 was their flagship developer product, and what they pointed you at for large scale development. VB had a distinct role, but I never got the feeling that VC6 was supposed to be replaced by it. (And I too have been using it sin
      • Nefarious implies criminality or wickedness (per Meriam Webster). It is not crminial or even wicked for a vendor to try to keep customers closey coupled or bound to the vendor's direction and vision. However, this is a widely recognized issue. I just stated it too succinctly for the comfort of some readers. It is perfectly valid for customers to worry about future support for a major aspect of an OS platform. To repeat, I like the product and develop using it many hours per day - every day - more than
  • This is free the way your tobacco company used to offer free samples before they realized that advertising could wash the minds of the sheeple.

  • One More Key Fact About C++ and VB and C#... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by was_ms_now_linux ( 834256 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @11:16AM (#10953276) Homepage
    ...is that unmanaged C++ is still the only access route to the scalable aspects of most of the underlying platform services such as TCP/IP stacks, Web Server etc. Support for TCP/IP within .Net is very limited - confined to client-app mechanisms but nothing for scalable server-side development. Same story for anything but plain-vanilla web development. The second I had to use a x.509 certificate from a bank for a program I was writing, had to go to the WinHTTP SDK, which is denominated in C. VB.Net and C# are great for the fill-in-the-blanks style coding that some simpler tasks necessitate, but C++ is still an absolute requirement for the vast majority of enterprise endeavors. MS still achieves all its benchmarks using VC++ - they don't even use their own .Net languages when they need respectable numbers. Doug Hettinger (dh_75032@yahoo.com)

  • These have been available since June 2004.

    Personally, I've already got my hands on the full Visual Studio 2005 Beta refresh, not the lame express edition.

    From what I've seen so far, they've really made some significant upgrades to their programming IDE.

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