| ballistik |
Posted - May 07 2004 : 5:06:59 PM
Just thought I'd let you all know... if anyone is interested in getting VB .Net 2003 for free, visit this link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/atthemovies/
Just watch and rate 5 of the movies and follow the simple instructions and you'll get a free copy (only for U.S. and Canada folks though). I just did this, took about a half an hour to do and I learned some cool stuff too.  |
| ballistik |
Posted - May 10 2004 : 9:33:02 PM
I agree Eric. I couldn't have said it better myself. Although I was thinking about it...
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| VBBR |
Posted - May 10 2004 : 10:56:48 AM
lol for cjb0087...
for Eric... have you written a book? Seriously. You write very well. |
| cjb0087 |
Posted - May 10 2004 : 01:11:30 AM
the important thing, is your job FUN?
anyway i think that .Net will either make or break microsoft, im hoping for the latter because i find them as a bunch or arrogant |*ricks, but i dont want them to totally die, just to come back down from mars. and also it must be after halo2 is shipped :D |
| Eric Coleman |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 11:09:59 PM
Macintosh computers have always had a reputation for being needlessly difficult to program for. The fact that they didn't have a "visual" tool at the beginning of the PC revolution left them in the dust.
The business model that most people adopt for programs written for the Linux O/S is doomed to failure. Free software is nice, but unless it leads some people relying on you to buy other software, your software is doomed to failure. There are only a handfull of cases where free software has succeded, and they are very small minority.
I write and sell software to control robotic cameras. There are a few people that compete with me in this market, and in particular there are some people that gather on a Yahoo group and have released their software for free and some of them have even released the source code for their software. They have hacked my software to reverse enginere what I've done to make their software better. The difference is that I charge money for my software, and that helps me to research and develep the software. My competition will always being reverse engineering my software and playing 'catch up' with me. Since they aren't gaining anything from their work, they will eventually either have to start charging for their software or give up. I'm hoping for the latter. I've worked my ass off developing my software, and I have no respect for these people that have reverse engineered my work for their own benefit.
The bottom line is that they fail to grasp that software development is a business, and unless you have a decent business model, you're doomed to failure. That same idea can be applied to the many open source and free projects. Consider Mozilla, one of the more famous. It failed to bring in any money and has resorted to selling CD's and customer support. The software is loaded with bugs, none of the programmers have any incentive to ever fix them. I don't use IE, but I do understand that even though IE is free, you do pay for it by using Windows, so the cost is just hidden.
Unless there is a VB clone on Linux that isn't free and isn't open source, then there will never be anything near as good as what Microsoft can provide. MS can hire decent programmers, and not just hobby progammers, good or not. MS can make their progammers meet deadlines. Open source projects only progress when someone has free time, and most people that work on these projects have jobs that come before the open source project. Money needs to be the incentive to create a decent VB clone on Linux. |
| Sr. Guapo |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 10:18:35 PM
Longhorn isn't "that" big a change from XP. They (M$) doesn't plan to change everything around untiol codename: BlackComb is released. |
| VBBR |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 08:53:33 AM
I think I already saw something about it but never really checked though. Thanks for remembering, I will check this out. |
| ballistik |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 08:16:06 AM
quote:
Just one more thing... If VB is the secret weapon for W|ind0ws, why doesn't (or didn't) anyone creates something similar for Linux or Mac or whatever?
Actually there is a tool quite similar to VB that is multiplatform. Check out http://www.realbasic.com. I've never really used it, I downloaded the trial version but never took the time to actually learn the IDE, etc. It looks fairly decent though and is getting decent reviews.
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| VBBR |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 06:22:40 AM
So the thing is really a war, isn't it? Kinda M$ versus The-Open-Source-Movement... Unfortunately it looks like M$ is really manipulating everyone.
But I think people must be warned at least, before being dragged into the M$ monopoly.
Just one more thing... If VB is the secret weapon for W|ind0ws, why doesn't (or didn't) anyone creates something similar for Linux or Mac or whatever?
We just can't be 100% OK with the fact that M$ wants everyone to use their operating system like it's "W|ind0ws or Nothing". It doesn't seem right. |
| Almar |
Posted - May 09 2004 : 03:22:12 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Eric Coleman
Just so you know, I'm sure they have more than 10 copies. It was just an exaggeration to make my statement easier to understand.
Even if they do want to give away VB.NET 2003, that's not really a loss for them because it locks the programmer into developing only for a MS Windows computer. Visual Basic has always been Microsoft's secret weapon. It makes software development extremely easy, as anyone that visits this website will know. Because of that ease of use hobbyists, (again everyone that visits this website,) will create software and make the windows platform more attractive simply because of software abundance.
Since MS is betting everything on .NET, it needs software for its new Longhorn operating system, and what better way to get software made than to give away the very tool that makes programming easy?
If Linux or Macintosh had some software that was as nice as VB, then those operating systems would be extremly popular. Unfortunately, they don't have it.
Anyone that want's to argue about .NET being platform independent needs to learn a bit more about Microsoft. They are registering a very large number of patents in regards to their new operating system. They are averaging 10 patents a day. That's a LOT. This is going to make it illegal and difficult to acheive compatiblity with Microsoft's new OS, do a google about how their file system isn't a file system anymore, its an html database (do I even have to say the word 'slow'). When Longhorn ships, I'm sure it will ship with a new version of the .NET framework as well, either a 1.2 or possibly a 2.0. There isn't even a completed 1.0 .NET framework for linux yet, and unfortunately they can't even keep with with Microsoft's progress.
Resistance is futile.
I believe the filesystem is based on SQL, which is actually quite fast. But it won't be in Longhorn, since there are still problems with it
But further.. you're right :) |
| Sr. Guapo |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 10:53:41 PM
whoa... |
| Eric Coleman |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 10:40:08 PM
Just so you know, I'm sure they have more than 10 copies. It was just an exaggeration to make my statement easier to understand.
Even if they do want to give away VB.NET 2003, that's not really a loss for them because it locks the programmer into developing only for a MS Windows computer. Visual Basic has always been Microsoft's secret weapon. It makes software development extremely easy, as anyone that visits this website will know. Because of that ease of use hobbyists, (again everyone that visits this website,) will create software and make the windows platform more attractive simply because of software abundance.
Since MS is betting everything on .NET, it needs software for its new Longhorn operating system, and what better way to get software made than to give away the very tool that makes programming easy?
If Linux or Macintosh had some software that was as nice as VB, then those operating systems would be extremly popular. Unfortunately, they don't have it.
Anyone that want's to argue about .NET being platform independent needs to learn a bit more about Microsoft. They are registering a very large number of patents in regards to their new operating system. They are averaging 10 patents a day. That's a LOT. This is going to make it illegal and difficult to acheive compatiblity with Microsoft's new OS, do a google about how their file system isn't a file system anymore, its an html database (do I even have to say the word 'slow'). When Longhorn ships, I'm sure it will ship with a new version of the .NET framework as well, either a 1.2 or possibly a 2.0. There isn't even a completed 1.0 .NET framework for linux yet, and unfortunately they can't even keep with with Microsoft's progress.
Resistance is futile. |
| VBBR |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 6:32:32 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Eric Coleman
quote:
Offer good only while supplies last
They're probably only giving away 10 copies. Everyone else ends up giving them their mailing address, so now they know where you live. Is that a good thing?
Hey Eric, I just copied your post and posted it (with credits for you) at the Revolution3D forum (see it here), because there is also a topic talking about this there, and I wanted to let it clear to everyone.
If you're not OK with this, please let me know so I remove my post there. |
| ballistik |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 6:19:25 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Sr. Guapo
What version was it? Pro/Acedemic... What?
It's the Standard version. Good enough for me! 
quote:
Originally posted by Eric Coleman
They're probably only giving away 10 copies. Everyone else ends up giving them their mailing address, so now they know where you live. Is that a good thing?
lol... hmmmm 
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| VBBR |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 6:13:34 PM
I guess not... |
| Eric Coleman |
Posted - May 08 2004 : 6:00:17 PM
quote:
Offer good only while supplies last
They're probably only giving away 10 copies. Everyone else ends up giving them their mailing address, so now they know where you live. Is that a good thing? |
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