Microsoft is giving away copies of Visual Basic.NET in a promotion called VB at the movies. In exchange for watching five relatively short “movies” you get a “free” (not for resale) copy of Visual Basic.NET (IDE and all needed tools). The movies themselves are a showcase of features available in Visual Basic.NET. Note that only 2 of 7 movies are currently available.
Visual Basic.NET 2003 – for Free
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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wow never thought MS would teach you how to use there software AND give it away free… makes you wonder what the ploy is.. but the story is a bit mis informed, theres only 2 catagories avail. but around 20 movies. all teach you misc things in VB i guess (havent watched them all yet).
something is fishy..
One thing is for sure: you can’t beat free.
Although, I am sort of suprised they are giving away Visual Basic.NET as opposed to Visual C#; but I assume they are appealing to the die-hard VB6 coders with this one.
Im there!!!
I hear good things about VB.Net like it does not feel like a hacked together language anymore.
You don’t actually have to watch them. Just rate them. Although some are actually worth watching.
The ploy is to get people to develop VB.NET because then they lock you into the Windows/.NET platform. If the world was filled with VB.NET programmers, Windows would continue to be the king.
I guess us Australians can’t get those copies.
So, first we hear that they don’t care if you pirate their OS, just as long as you don’t make them look bad by running it unpatched, and now they want to give away tools that allow users to develop software for their platform, in an attempt to maintain their dominance.
Uh, what, exactly, is wrong with trying to keep a healthy developer userbase, man?
Hey, man, what are they supposed to do, you know, go, “NO, NO, NO CODE FOR PLATFORM, BAAAD!” and hoarde their IDEs?
They got the smart business logic, my man. All for the money, honey.
“The ploy is to get people to develop VB.NET because then they lock you into the Windows/.NET platform. If the world was filled with VB.NET programmers, Windows would continue to be the king.”
Of course this is what Microsoft wants. They are a business that wants people to use THEIR products! What business in their right mind wouldnt do something like this in hopes of promoting their product more. I wish more companies would do this! Its no different than being offered a free sample of food in Costco in hopes you will buy what you sampled. Of course, this IS Microsoft we are talking about, so I wacko, short sighted conspiracy theories are to be expected
Likely trying to appeal to the holdouts and hardcore 6 users. I think adding native code support and making it a lot faster and more usable would be a better idea. Pass.
VB is one of the key things that made Microsoft the juggernaut that it is today.
I remember a few years back we were working with this company to develop an time-date stamp embedded system for brokers. I was in charge of developing the configuration program and a little diagnostic server that they could use to query these devices. Now we were a straight c++ shop so it was decided that I would use MFC/win32 api. Well a couple guys from the company that we were working with flew down for a few days. When I mentioned that I was using MFC/win32 api to these guys they were like WTF, why don’t you just use VB. One of these guys opened up the IDE on his laptop and proceeded to show me how easy it was to create a gui and sprinkle a little code into the generated code to get things up and running. Note, these guys were hardcore hardware and microengineers. These weren’t junior Microsoft Office developers or something. These guys wrote very low-level code and knew hardware very well.
I guess the moral of the story is that you use the right too for the job, and VB seems to get the job done for many people. I’ve still never used VB myself though. I guess once c# came out I didn’t know what the purpose was.
Of course, people are harping on MS for giving away free dev tools because they say MS is trying to lock people into a platform, but nobody says shit when Lindows gives away the entire OS
I’ve got a special on tinfoil hats. I’m sure you’re in the market for one.
of what you get as MS consumer, partner, etc.
You can also get tons of other fantastic stuff from MS for free. If you sign up for their newsletters you will get regular updates for free stuff.
Someone also posted a detailed list of great stuff on OS News the other day, let me see if I can find it.
Of course, people are harping on MS for giving away free dev tools because they say MS is trying to lock people into a platform, but nobody says shit when Lindows gives away the entire OS
Well, then I’m not people, and I’m somebody. People, you are talking about the OSNews readers like they were one person.
I know one thing. I wouldn’t want to be that person
Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) 3.5 is now being given away for free by MS
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/default.asp
“Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 provides a full range of supported and fully integrated cross-platform network services geared toward enterprise customers who need interoperability between Windows and UNIX–based environments. Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 provides enterprise customers with seamless access to information stored in multiple platforms, consolidates network management across platforms, and reuses UNIX applications and scripts on Windows.”
Download it here-
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/downloads/default.asp or you can also get the CD if you are on a slow internet connection.
That is $109 saved for Visual Basic, and SFU used to be $250 and then dropped to $99 before they started providing it as a free download.
they’d start selling products instead of licenses… how can it not be legal to sell something you came into legal possession of? Not for retail resale I understand, but just no selling it to anyone?
That’s greed and control for you. I bet we are going to see this change over the next few years though. MS will soften up or else they’ll be history.
I bet they will stop charging for the devtools completely sooner or later. It has never made sense to charge money for the hand to feed you IMO.
“Power can be such a tease, you’re always wanting more. It’s good to know that just like sex, it can be paid for” – David Bazan(Pedro The Lion)
First Microsoft .NET SDK is available for free (with C# CLI compiler), and you can use it with #Develop.
Then the Visual Studio 2003 Toolkit with free CLI C++ compiler for free.
Now the Visual Basic.NET 2003 for free.
You bet the pressure for moving .NET is growing, at the same time Mono is moving in a nice pace as well.
Are you blind? Look above a few posts. If you are real developer making software for the Windows platform, for $375 MS is giving you tens of thousands of dollars of software to enable you to be productive. All oses, all server oses, all biz applications, full access to msdn downloads, the full vis studio .net universal subscription, etc etc etc.
That $375 hardly covers the cost of the monthly overnight mailings you get.
There is a small fee in place to keep the program from attracting kids and bottom feeders that just want something for nothing.
If you can’t afford $375 you aren’t much interested in making a living coding software I would imagine.
There is a small fee in place to keep the program from attracting kids and bottom feeders that just want something for nothing.
It’s usually those kids who come up with the great ideas. So you mean that youre not a real developer if you don’t have the cash to spend on the devtools?
Sure it’s a great deal, but a lot of people don’t have that kind of money, and that includes a lot of talented developers.
Microsoft makes a lot of money allready thanks to the developers, they have allready paid for the tools.
BTW, I’m not blind it’s just that my eyes tend to skip advertisements.
Thats about two weeks pay at minimum wage in the USA.
If a kid without a lot of disposable income, I’d think a lot of parents would be thrilled to death to buy something like the Empower Program for you.
$375 is less than a single credit class at most colleges in the USA.
It’s a monthly payment on a new car.
Its less than a class and the test to get an A+ certification.
Its an Xbox or Playstation 2 and 4 new games.
Again, if you can’t afford $375 to enable your future, why should any profit seeking company support the needy? The programming world seems to do just fine with the model of selling top end development tools.
If you want free, download the .net sdk and runtime and code away.
is it’s somewhat a trick (in my views anyways). Microsoft (as anyone that attends any university in a computer corse should know) gives away most all their software (most likely as a deal with the school to be a ‘Microsoft only’ school.) to (unknowingly) curve application/web deveopment how Microsoft wants it (and how they can control it) in the future. This is mostly why you still see web pages that ‘only work with IE’ (that do not go with any standards). Sorry guys, I am not totally anti-microsoft, but I can see right through this game.
Sure you can. Free and Open Source.
Not to mention that VB is a steaming pile.
“…Note, these guys were hardcore hardware and microengineers. These weren’t junior Microsoft Office developers or something. These guys wrote very low-level code and knew hardware very well.
I know guys like that as well. We have some HW development and basically all those folk just love VB. However, their SW basically sucks and they are using VB6 because many of them really don’t know how to program in a sense of algorithmic thinking and abstraction. The result is a bunch of SW that albeit it does what is supposed to do, is all horribly glued together and extremely fragile. It deteriorates into disfunctionalitz too rapidlz, and then it needs to be thrown away. The way I see it they are basically kind of SW craftsmen. Also, my experience with other (non low level, HW etc) VB-only programmers (I did VB programming for quite a while) is that they too are just craftsmen, they learned their stuff by trial and error, but when they have to reach outside their comfy world of own experiences – they are lost. I found that C/C++ and even Delphi developers are much more resourceful and they know to swim in all kinds of waters. The other problem with VB programmers is that they mostly never cared to learn anything under the hood. Some of them don’t even know what worlds like “compiler”, “linker” or “dynamic/shared library” mean or they are confusing them with something. Again as long they stick with their tools thez are great, but once outside they are utterly lost. That is not what an engineer of any kind should be!
… it’s only available in the US.
“Of course, this IS Microsoft we are talking about, so I wacko, short sighted conspiracy theories are to be expected”
Just remember, 56 Billion can buy a lot of free.
I believe the phrase is “cowboy programming”.
“That is not what an engineer of any kind should be! ”
I wasn’t aware that programmers were considered engineers, otherwise your point is noted.
Could the mono project have anything to do with this?
Maybe MS is afraid to loose too many programmers.
one thing u left out microsoft is a monopol in most of the country in the world there r rules that company need to leave with , lindows (linspire) r not a monopol .
btw: i don’t think anyone object that MS will give away windows and ms office for free.
“Microsoft (as anyone that attends any university in a computer corse should know) gives away most all their software (most likely as a deal with the school to be a ‘Microsoft only’ school.) …
Sorry guys, I am not totally anti-microsoft, but I can see right through this game.”
I am able to take part if this at my university. I can either get the program free for checkout or pay a few bucks to order a CD of the program. I just paid $14 for Visual Studio.NET with all the documentation. The idea for literally giving the software away for free is quite a smart move. The more students that used and are familiar with your software, the more purchases you are likely to make. Its a good move that every company that makes development software should be doing if they want an easier way to build future customers.
bof… and the rest of the world will use mono???
Blame on the Canadians…
I’m not an US resident and I am a bit disappointed.
Microsoft is forced to give VB.NET away for 3 reasons:
First, competitors like Sun, Ibm, Oracle, and others are giving away for free their development systems. This is the first time Microsoft has done major freebies like this in a very long time; so they must be hurting on .NET take up;
Second, VB.NET is very much like C# but C# is better, more features. So many VB programmers have just switched to C# because the conversion utility supplied by Microsoft is so weak in getting VBx code to VB.NET and once they get to VB.NET they are practically writing C# code – so go to C# directly.
Third, analysts are telling users to avoid .NET (see http://www.theopensourcery.com and comments at eWeek by Steven Vaughan-Nicholls and at Zapthink)because in two years the new Longhorn will make all .NET work obsolete due to major changes in the Windows SDK.
Of course this is what Microsoft wants. They are a business that wants people to use THEIR products! What business in their right mind wouldnt do something like this in hopes of promoting their product more.
Have you ever heard the word “monopoly” ?
“Second, VB.NET is very much like C# but C# is better, more features”
don’t believe everything people tell you
Well, what can I do to try their offer? I’m not an US citizen. Will they start to make it available worldwide later or it will stay like that? Of course , otherwise I can get the whole .NET suite one way or another.Now they made me curious about all this .NET stuff.
I’m watching one of the movies in the “Controls” area and I noticed in the lower right hand side of the move the little VMWare icon. I gues M$ doesn’t like the Virtual Machine software it makes.
Have you ever heard the word “monopoly” ?
What does MS having a monopoly (which is not illegal in the US) on the home desktop have to do with them giving away dev tools for free ?
Are you trying to imply that they want to keep the monopoly they have established ? Big Surprise there!
Any company giving away dev tools for a platform that is used by 95% of the home user base is a good thing. Not all of us are on some religious crusade. We don’t all care that MS is a huge monopoly or that BeOS never made it. We don’t lose sleep at night over Apple blowing it with the MacOS 20 years ago. We don’t cry about companies that can’t/couldn’t get their crap together and got run over by the onslaught of MS. Its business. Its not always moral and in many cases your friends are your biggest enemies. Its just business dude.
We want to pay the bills and free dev tools help that happen regardless of who is giving them away.
So keep on crying about monopolies and preach the ‘moral message’ behind OSS. I’ll keep paying my bills regardless.
This offer is valid in the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, all U.S. military bases that contain valid APO/FPO addresses, and Canada.
Actually, I think the poster made a mistake. MicroSoft’s website doesn’t make this clear, but there are actually only two of seven groups of movies availible, each of the two groups have more then the 5 movies you have to watch to get the freebie. The two avilible groups of movies are about Controls and Database/XML issues.
“What does MS having a monopoly (which is not illegal in the US) on the home desktop have to do with them giving away dev tools for free ? ”
Having one isn’t (unless gained illegally), but abusing one is.
“Any company giving away dev tools for a platform that is used by 95% of the home user base is a good thing. Not all of us are on some religious crusade. We don’t all care that MS is a huge monopoly or that BeOS never made it. We don’t lose sleep at night over Apple blowing it with the MacOS 20 years ago. We don’t cry about companies that can’t/couldn’t get their crap together and got run over by the onslaught of MS. Its business. Its not always moral and in many cases your friends are your biggest enemies. Its just business dude. ”
And there are people who don’t care about third-world children starving, or human right’s atrocities. Apathy is a very common thing in this world. So what was your point then?
“We want to pay the bills and free dev tools help that happen regardless of who is giving them away. ”
There’s more than one way to pay the bills. Taking up assassin as a career can certainly pay the bills, doesn’t mean you should.
“So keep on crying about monopolies and preach the ‘moral message’ behind OSS. I’ll keep paying my bills regardless.”
As long as things go your way. I wonder if Stacker and Go are still paying their bills?
And there are people who don’t care about third-world children starving, or human right’s atrocities. Apathy is a very common thing in this world. So what was your point then?
That’s a really silly comparison, man. He didn’t say apathy, he was just talking about business competition. Sure, it’s just as silly for him to defend monopolistic practices, but that doesn’t mean he’s a cold hearted child killer, for Christ’s sake.
Having one isn’t (unless gained illegally), but abusing one is.
I agree abusing a monopoly is illegal. I don’t see how giving away free dev tools is abusing their monopoly though. MS is takign it in the shorts due to competition. I doubt they *want* to give away this stuff for free. More like they need to do this because of market realitites.
Either way developers of Windows win. More tools for less $.
And there are people who don’t care about third-world children starving, or human right’s atrocities. Apathy is a very common thing in this world. So what was your point then?
My point is that 90% of the posts in these forums are just knee jerk reactions from people who likely won’t use the tools anyway. In order to find any posts that actually have anything to do with the article one has to wade through 30 posts of ‘MS is a monopoly! blah blah blah’
Yeah thats been proven in a court of law, no two ways about it. Anyone who isn’t aware of that fact has been asleep for a few years.
As long as things go your way. I wonder if Stacker and Go are still paying their bills?
Thats like me claiming that Linux is the reason Sun and every other UNIX company are losing money (oops it is!). OMG Linux is EVIL! Its driving companies out of business. How will they pay their bills!?!??
Give me a break. Its a nice double standard in this place. If some guy in a bedroom gives it away its painted as a nice thing. I mean Linux might just end a few companies. No big deal.. they are just corporations out to make a profit.
Now if MS gives it away its suddenly some evil plot by a monopoly. lol. OMG they are driving out the competition! How will anyone compete with FREE from MS !???
What a joke…
Yes yes and one more time yes.
So many people who claim that VB is enough for everything
are really very limited. I saw so many code for VB which
written by people who really donot know what is logical
thinking and system analise.
What i like for example:
1. people like to save values of variables
in textboxes and then cast them to Int or Long when they need it.
2. Also they never ever use structures in VB, but all of them
claim that they are strong in object oriented programming.
Actually when i see structures in VB code i immidiately
recognise persons who worked at least with something else
but not only VB.
All I have to say is that this, and several other things from microsoft, is showing that microsoft is feeling the burn and actually realizing the competition – and responding to it. As long as there’s fair competition going on on the market, then we decide what is acceptable for our dollar, as the market finds a happy medium… Not the company with the monopoly’s decision, and us forced to follow for lack of alternative.
I’m hopeful for when things balance out, and ‘free’ isn’t a requirement to compete in this business, and it doesn’t cost an exorbant amount of money for a ‘brand name’ OS or program. Where the cost is justified, and a choice is there:)
Pardon the slightly off topic – but here it is with Microsoft and VB.Net – trying to get more people to work with the language. Given the rising popularity of linux, and thus the wide array of languages associated with it (READ: Not exclusive to linux, just associated with it), and also the array of other OS’ that are vaguely similar to linux… the world is opening up a bit. People’s eyes are opening, and now I just can’t wait to see more fair competition from Microsoft.
Beats the hell out of strongarming people
“What you are fear?”
No: all your base are belong to us 😛
Having one isn’t (unless gained illegally), but abusing one is.
It’s actually a bit of a catch-22. For a monopoly, many (legal for non-monopolies) day to day business practices are *illegal*. However, a company has no way of knowing whether or not it is a monopoly until a court rules it to be one – at which point a lot of the perfectly normal things it is doing suddenly (if not retrospectively) become illegal.
So, basically, while it’s theoretically possible to have a legal, “non-abusive” monopoly, in practical terms it’s impossible.