Speaking as a guy who (currently) only uses Visual Studio at home for recreational programming, and not at the office, I'm pretty happy about this. The Express editions are OK, but it's nice to have access to extensions, like VisualHG for Mercurial integration. (Yeah, I know I should switch to Git, but I really like Hg.)
> (Yeah, I know I should switch to Git, but I really like Hg.)
A bit OT but don't apologise for being more proficient in an unpopular/less accepted tool than most are with a popular/more accepted one.
Tired of people shitting on other folk for not using the "flavour of the month" tool.
Less v. Sass, PHP v. the world ... it's not constructive.
No problem in discussing the pros and cons of one tool over the other, and it's still fine to conclude one has as many pros as the other has cons, but it's not ok to bemoan the use of either.
Totally agree with @jszymborski. As a developer who is always looking for better ways, sometimes the best tool for the job is the one you already know really well.
I don't get the Git fixation. I know it's popular, possibly in a big way due to GitHub. Yet I'm comfortable using Mercurial and Bitbucket. Probably due to Hg being cross-platform from the beginning, it's more Windows-friendly.
Mercurial is fine, but git had github, so that kinda won the war. And not having 7 version control systems to know is nice. So think of git as lingua franca.
Let me disagree with others. As the same version control is used by the entire team in most cases, if Andy is doing any work with others, what others use and prefer (git most likely) would influence what he should try to get proficient at.
"Visual Studio Community 2013 is free for any non-enterprise application development."
What's left out to make it non-enterprise development? Or to put it another way - how are they restricting its usage & preserving sales of Visual Studio?
I believe what they mean by "non-enterprise application development" is the slightly later on clarification saying "for teams of up to 5 people" (or less than 5 people, I forget exactly). So likely you will get a free license, which you can use to register up to the max number for community, and if you try anything beyond that it will ask you to buy a license. Or something along that line.
They also mention that Community has the full power of Visual Studio with no features really removed. It's just the licensing for whatever size teams that matters.
It's kind of funny; it's not like the price of the actual license is a big obstacle for anyone making money with the tool -- but managing the licenses and staying compliant -- now that's a cost I don't want. Just like windows licenses. Is it per user? Per core? Per CPU? Can I have any number of (vm) instances per cpu? Per server, or was it per cpu socket? Can I upgrade? Can I upgrade the hardware and keep the license? It's madness - I don't have time to waste on crap like that.
From what I have seen this is essentially Visual Studio Professional with a license restriction for enterprise use. There is, at least was not in the previews I have worked with, no actual limitation built into the software, it is purely a licensing limitation.
There is also this phrase which is even more vague:
and for teams with more than five people
Per-seat licensing I can understand, but what constitutes a "team"? If I use it to develop an application, I'm not allowed to share the source code with more than 4 others? That doesn't make any sense.
"For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1MM in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above."
I've long used the compiler included with the Windows SDK for automated testing of our C API. Since the latest versions of the SDK no longer include a compiler, I'll need to use some edition of Visual C++, for which I had assumed that Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop (say that three times fast) would suffice. If Community replaces Express, I'll no longer have a freely available tool chain to deploy throughout the testing lab.
I guess I'll have to reread the terms of my MSDN subscription to see whether it's kosher for me to install Visual Studio on systems where other people are running my tests, or if they'll need subscriptions too.
If it's just the base edition, it's missing a lot of the more powerful code analysis and testing tools, as well as team management stuff. More than likely though, it's going to be a licensing thing. There's plenty of software out there that has a full-featured non-commercial version that relies on large companies not wanting to get sued to sell commercial licenses.
What happens when a desktop equivalent of android becomes the mainstay?
Microsoft makes 25% of it's revenue from Windows. And an equal amount from server and tools(this is where VS belongs). Xbox makes 13% and Bing 4%.
Office makes up 32% of the revenue. If MS can sacrifice a part of the 25% which VS is a part of and retain or perhaps increase the net revenue from other segments ( by attracting developers), then it will be a successful move.
Attracting developers will only be half the game. It will still have to find a way to ship more devices with Windows and for that it will have to make Windows devices and phones primarily an attractive option.
With most consumer computing now occurring on mobile devices, sales of devices with Windows will determine Microsoft's future. The consumer segment will have an effect on the enterprise segment as well. Microsoft will then end up eventually losing all their revenue streams.
They are betting the farm on Azure and doing what Ballmer had probably been tasked to do for the last 10 years: wait as long as possible before becoming a services company.
Are they really making money with Azure? Isn't that one of the most competitive markets at the moment? I'd imagine the margins are slim to none as everyone is trying to price each other out.
From the preview it looks like a lot of the refactorings/tools I use ReSharper for in VS2013 is actually going to be built in when 2015 ships. So Resharper may feel overpriced in a hurry, if many of their users didn't pay an arm for the IDE itself (making the plugin relatively cheap) and if what they are offering suddenly isn't as much as it used to be.
This is a great time to reiterate that startups receive Microsoft's software for free, obviously including all versions of Visual Studio.
Check out BizSpark.com or get in touch with me if you happen to be a YC company (felix.rieseberg@microsoft.com).
(Also, sorry for popping up in all the threads - We have a lot of threads here right now about VS options and I want to make sure that people know that they might be able to get VS Ultimate for free.)
It does. It is essentially VS Pro but with a change to the license to disallow use in the enterprise. There are no built in restrictions though so it is possible to make anything you want with it but doing so in the enterprise would be against the license agreement.
One thing to note is that the Community edition does require registration within 30 days to continue using it in the same way VS Express does.
What this means for the express versions I do not know, I suspect they will not be around for VS 2015.
Visual Studio doesn't run on the .NET runtime entirely and uses WPF. Thus all of the C++ logic and WPF itself would need to be ported for that to happen.
I suppose there is a lot of windows and C++ black magic going on under the good in VS, but since all the editing and compiling tools are all managed in VS 2015 (The OSS "Roslyn" tools are used for compiler, syntax highlighter, refactoring etc.) and those bits are free for anyone to use, it should be quite possible for the community to make an IDE for Linux/MacOS that feels a lot like VS does on windows (Maybe the SharpDevelop team will take on Roslyn? Haven't heard).
Of course VS is a huge beast of an application and there are thousands of parts that will be more or less impossible to port straight over because of ties with windows (Profiler for example).
I would agree, although I doubt Microsoft will lead the charge there. The money is in selling MSDN licenses which means they are going to be on Windows anyway.
Sounds like "the evil empire" of old realized that releasing its platform as Open Source would revitalize its platform.
This is eventually what happens, after the first mover monopolists collect their rent for a decade. I don't mean it in a bad way, just as an observation of repeatable economic trends.
After all, now Microsoft needs more app developers to develop Windows apps and compete on the mobile front.
It's mostly them becoming a service company (Azure) rather than a software company (Windows, Office). The more people that can push code to azure, the more money they will make in the future. So giving people the tools to do that for free makes a lot of sense. Still charging the big money from the enterprises of course, because not doing that would be insane.
The mobile thing is relevant of course, but Azure is where they are betting the farm.
So I currently have an VS Pro + MSDN subscription. I need MSDN for running Windows Server VMs (I dev on a Windows Server 2008 VM currently). Is there any cheaper version that gives me Windows licenses for my dev systems now that I don't need to pay for VS Pro?
This is great, now people have Visual Studio as an option for Python development, I have to say... Python Tools for Visual Studio is A+. I honestly prefer it to PyCharm, and I use PyCharm on Linux because I don't get to use VS.
I'm just glad to have access to the option Debug / Attach to process, one of the many very useful little features that were annoyingly omitted from the Express version in the past.
Q: Who can use Visual Studio Community?
A: Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:
Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community to create their own free or paid apps.
Xamarin currently offers VS integration only for the Business or Enterprise editions, the Free tier has no support for VS. You can however use a trial version of Xamarin (Bussiness or Enterprise) for about 30 days that will let you build iOS and Android apps with some limitations (the built executable has a limited life time, one day I think). After 30 days you can buy a Xamarin license or the tool will revert to the Free Xamarin tier (this one is severely limited - application size, integration with external libraries and so on).
Free Xamarin Starter Edition for Visual Studio Users –
Today, Microsoft announced a new, free edition to Visual
Studio—Visual Studio Community. Visual Studio Community
contains support for extensions, which means it will be
Xamarin compatible with from day one. We want to help make
Visual Studio Community a tool for anyone to create native
apps for iOS and Android, so we are announcing our plans to
enable our freely available Xamarin Starter Edition to work
with Visual Studio Community. We are also doubling the size
limit on apps that can be created with Xamarin Starter Edition,
so that you can build even more capable apps for free.
This will be available in the coming weeks.
Thanks, I've seen their blog on other HN thread a few minutes ago. The future looks good if you write pure C# code, but if you want to use something like MonoGame you will still need to buy a Xamarin license.
I suppose Xamarin will offer VS support for the Indie license too, doesn't make much sense to offer support only for the Starter license. The Indie license allows you to use libraries like MonoGame.
> Q: How does Visual Studio Community 2013 compare to other Visual Studio editions?
> A: Visual Studio Community 2013 includes all the great functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013, designed and optimized for individual developers, students, open source contributors, and small teams.
If MS keeps giving away its software for free, how is it going to make money?
Hopefully it won't ad advertising.
Is it because a lot of people become comfortable with the tools and companies upgrade to the paid version for a few extra features?
You cannot use Community to make enterprise software. Enterprise software described the entirety of the people willing to drop $2,000+ a year to use Visual Studio.
This won't impact their primary market, especially when you consider that MSDN subscriptions are often considered the primary benefit of using Visual Studio.
> You cannot use Community to make enterprise software.
Not quite. You cannot use Community IN an enterprise other than for contributing to open source, academic research, or classroom learning. There's no restriction on using it to MAKE enterprise software.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1335...
page 10 but I'm not sure if it's only about organizations up to 5 but it's fine if you are Individual?? :
"Example 2: A Fortune 500 firm has outsourced the development of its store-locator mobile application to a small agency. The application is not an open source project. The agency has 5 employees working on the project and would like to use Visual Studio Community 2013. Since the agency is a contractor developing this application for the Fortune 500 firm, and since the application is not an open source project, the agency cannot use Visual Studio Community 2013 for developing and testing the application. "
I don't know if Microsoft is among ones practice this approach, but they can potentially discontinue and force users to move on to paid version, once they gain enough user hooked to it.
Though, it seems like Microsoft has been consistent with their Express SKUs for years, maybe this is purely theoretical. (One instance I can think of is TechNet -- but this one, they discontinued it without alternative path, so I guess it's a little different...)
