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Microsoft to Give Away Developer Tools to Students

Posted by samzenpus on from the first-hit's-free dept.

beuges writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Microsoft will make full versions of their development tools available to students. "The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program. Gates said students will want to try Microsoft's tools because they're more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites. But Gates said giving away Microsoft software isn't intended to turn students against open source software entirely. Rather, he hopes it will just add one more tool to their belt.""

4 of 555 comments (clear)

  1. Professional Tools by stoolpigeon · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the downloads page "Now remember these are professional tools. This means they are pretty big files so make sure you have the bandwidth and space to bring them to your machine."

    That kind of cracked me up. Remember kids, professional tools take up lots of storage space. If it's not big, it's not 'professional'.

    Also - this is not open to any student in the countries listed. There is a list of about 42 schools in the US that are plugged into their student verification system. In Belgium it is 2 schools, China 3 schools, etc.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:Professional Tools by motokochan · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you don't want to waste time fooling around with the various plugins and don't mind being a bit behind in versions, EasyEclipse is a great package set. Choose which "distribution" you want based on the tasks you'll do with it, and you get a well-tested set of plugins that do the functions you need.

      I've moved on from it since I've gotten more used to which tools I actually need, but it's awesome for those just starting with Eclipse.

  2. Re:Source Code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, they do for academic research purposes.

    http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Licensing/WindowsAcademic.mspx, namely the kernel.

    http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Licensing/researchkernel.mspx

  3. Re:Come Again? by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Come on dude. If you're a software developer you should have a reasonable machine. Visual Studio is a pig, but the benefits of it far outweigh the cost of upgrading your old broke-ass computer every few years. This is like complaining Oblivion or BioShock are bad games because you can't play them on your shitty ancient computer.

    Seriously, any CPU released in the last few years + 2 gigs of memory (4 gigs better - splurge on the extra $40) will run VS fine.