Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Express, VS 2005 Beta

An anonymous reader writes "At the TechEd Europe keynote today, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. With it, they also released a set of five 'Express Editions' of Visual Studio. These currently free applications offer a student and hobbyist-oriented version of Visual Studio, and are available in C#, C++, VB, Web Developer, and SQL flavors. Each download weighs in at right around 50MB and features tools, documentation, and starter kits. There's been multiple posts and more information on this announcement over at MSDN Blogs, too." Update: 06/29 13:57 GMT by S : A clarification from the Express FAQ: Although the Beta Express products are currently free to download: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year."

Comments

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now everyone can create secure, robust and reliable software.

RAD?

[tod_miller]

Interesting ideas, but I would say VB is an excellent prototyping tool.

I wouldn't say it has many advantages in terms of real system development, and I wouldn't want to list any of the disadvantages.

VB does indeed have a fairly nice UI drawing tool, and you can simply link many forms together, some would say you can even program with it! :-)

Don't forget: Devleopers developers developers developers, etc :-)

Re:Passport required ..

[baudilus]

password noted. please reply when your passport is created. We'll all d/l using that one.

Microsoft: What the.. this African accountant is downloading the same package from 15000 different IPs???