Comments on Flip Bits Not Burgers: Microsoft To Give Students Dev Software For Free

As Windows continues to wane as the dominant consu...

2008-02-27T13:29:32.986-05:00

As Windows continues to wane as the dominant consumer OS, I'm getting more and more inclined to use Mono more than Visual Studio.

I like developing with C# far more than deploying to Windows machines.

Agreed Michael, but in this case, they're offering...

2008-02-22T10:07:03.169-05:00

Agreed Michael, but in this case, they're offering the Pro version, which I think could really make a difference. Of course, what does it matter if you have MS IDEs on your personal machine, if your entire infrastructure is Linux/Unix and Mac, as is the case at more and more schools?

In the big picture, it doesn't really matter if th...

2008-02-19T16:22:41.321-05:00

In the big picture, it doesn't really matter if they give it away. Microsoft's overall sales and marketing culture and even little habits betray the goodwill they gain with no-cost software (no-cost yes but definitely not "free").

Using no-cost Microsoft tools always involves a double hassle of getting a somewhat less-than-entirely-useful version and irritating and manditory intrusive self-identifying registration with the machine.

IMHO Microsoft's no-cost software efforts have (unfortunately) done little to nothing to engender a developer-friendly reputation with the low-dough developer.