Author Topic: Yikes...any other programmers crap themselves at .Net pricing? (Read 647 times)

Skuzzy · « **Reply #15 on:** April 09, 2002, 07:57:59 AM »

Been programming for 20+ years and am still shocked at the way MS gets away with the pricing of the dev tools.

Took a brief look at .NET. No thanks. No way can I justify moving from VC6.0 to .NET.

It is pretty disgusting when the UNIX environment has always had the tools to do development work. By the time you buy all the manuals and software for dev work in MS, you end up with an outlay well over 2 grand. Simply disgusting.

Pei · « **Reply #16 on:** April 09, 2002, 08:51:52 AM »

I mostly do Java and C/C++ these days (with the odd bit of PERL thrown in for good measure - somebody once paraphrased Clarke as " Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from a PERL script").
Now real men code C++ (and masochists code Ada - been there and done that as well) but that's a big leap from VB. I do more Java work these days as I do enterprise software consulting and thats mostly Java or .NET (I was doing ASP.NET and C# last month). IMHO Java's main advantages are it's simplicity (it's a fully fledged OO language unlike VB, but it's much easier to deal with than C++), it's vast array of standard libraries and extensions and it's portability. Of course you pay for it in performance (at least in comparison with fully compiled languages like C++, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was a few years ago) but in most of my projects system performance is dominated by factors other than CPU utilization and memory footprint so it doesn't really matter that much. It I was developing system software (or games!) I'd definitely use C++.
With IDEs I find it's just quicker an easier to do it the old fashioned way. I also think they are severely limiting: IDEs become a crutch; an excuse not to learn what's really going on or make decisions for yourself. That's OK if you've already learn it the "hard way" and you actually know what you are doing but I find too many developers out there who have never gone outside they're IDE and have no real conept of compilation, linking etc. and cannot distinugish between their IDE and their development language at all.
I can live with vi but I find it counter-intuitive and I love the flexibility I get with EMACS (if you take the time to learn a little eLISP you can go a long way). So when it comes to the vi-EMACS holy war I'm definitely on the side of EMACS and freedom rather than the vi-infidels.

Voss · « **Reply #17 on:** April 09, 2002, 10:49:18 AM »

VC++ makes sense for games, but VB can do it too. I really liked what MS did with the BASIC language, but I'm not convinced .NET is the way to go. MS seems convinced that the Internet is of primary concern, and I don't think that's necessarily a valid premise.

There's a lot to be said for VFP, too.

I went by the local Barnes & Noble yesterday and saw they have Sam's 'Teach yourself VB6 - the Complete Training Kit' priced at just $20. Since, it comes with something 'like' the learning version (haven't seen it used yet) that's a great price, even though outdated now.

FDisk · « **Reply #18 on:** April 09, 2002, 11:25:03 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by SageFIN
(well, ok, Java isn't that bad

Where you dropped as a child? Java is that bad. It's C++'s reatrded brother

Voss · « **Reply #19 on:** April 09, 2002, 11:53:51 AM »

I forgot to say, heh, that Assembler was always my favorite. The inline stuff today is great, but isn't Microsoft's straight assembler/linker program still free today? You would pull your hair out and start mumbling things to yourself if you tried to write Windows programs with it, but it IS free (I think).

I wrote my first game with MASM (an ASCII graphic version of Trek), and used QBasic (I think) to generate a quadrant database for it. That would still work today, but gamers have outgrown the concept.

Hmm, maybe I should toy with that old program some more.

LePaul · « **Reply #20 on:** April 09, 2002, 11:55:46 AM »

Yea, I decided to give it a shot

I bought the Deluxe Learning kit...I like Michael Halvorson's books (Microsoft Press) so I bought the bundle that included his Visual Basic .Net Step-by-Step and VB .Net Standard.

After installing IIS, Frontpage extensions and such, THEN the install of VB .Net began. 45 minutes and 1.8GB later, its all in.

Its ugly, so far...but we're thumbing through Halvorson's guide and shaking my head at how much I'll have to shell out to do some of the things I'd like to do via VS .Net Professional

Free toys? How do you guys get so lucky!

My WISE InstallBuilder upgrade is another impressive pricetag...sigh!

At least I'm having a ball with my 3D Game Studio Software, and those updates are free!

LePaul · « **Reply #21 on:** April 09, 2002, 11:56:58 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Voss
I forgot to say, heh, that Assembler was always my favorite. The inline stuff today is great, but isn't Microsoft's straight assembler/linker program still free today? You would pull your hair out and start mumbling things to yourself if you tried to write Windows programs with it, but it IS free (I think).

I wrote my first game with MASM (an ASCII graphic version of Trek), and used QBasic (I think) to generate a quadrant database for it. That would still work today, but gamers have outgrown the concept.

Hmm, maybe I should toy with that old program some more.

Text Trek?

hehe, check out the Tradewars game on my BBS sometime!
Telnet to bbs.checksix.net

Voss · « **Reply #22 on:** April 09, 2002, 02:20:21 PM »

It helps to have graduated from the Seattle area. More then a dozen of my Senior Class work at Microsoft. Two of them are in the 'instant millionare' club. My best friend from school is the coordinator for the 'end-to-end server builds.' They outsource all of the work to various vendors and they are ALWAYS building on their servers, non-stop. He can't afford to send me anything, but the 'nerd' I took my first computer class with (in the days of punch cards and IBM 360's) can. She's beautiful, too!:D

Vulcan · « **Reply #23 on:** April 09, 2002, 02:39:47 PM »

whatever happened to Turbo Prolog...

btw some legal firm over here (NZ) is sueing MS over its Software Assurance plan (you know, pass for two years in advance for something we might not even release).

Voss · « **Reply #24 on:** April 09, 2002, 02:52:32 PM »

Screen Shot

Skuzzy · « **Reply #25 on:** April 09, 2002, 03:21:43 PM »

Oh my Voss. I had forgotten about a Trek program I did many years ago.

Similar in concept, except it was multi-player (16 players) and turn based. I even had a ship builder where you could design your own ship. It was written in C for UNIX.

My first functional program was a game based on pong. Except instead of a straight line moving up and down on the screen, it moved in a circle and you had to bounce the ball in the center of the screen. Wrote that one in Basic circa 1979 or so on a TRS-80 Model I.

I can't even begin to count the number of progams/utilities I have created in the last 20 years or so. One of my very early works was a HD reformatter that would safely change the disk sector interleave while preserving the data on the drive. I did this as computers were getting fast enough to handle a sector interleave less than 8, which was the default for the ST-506/ESDI interface drives of the day. It was a combination of assembly and C.

Those were fun and frustrating days. Talking directly to the hardware to see what you could squeeze out of it was a blast.

Switching to UNIX took some time. Trusting the operating system was the most work. I got to where I could count on UNIX. I wish I could say the same for a MS operating system. The only thing I can count on with MS, is it will break.

Voss · « **Reply #26 on:** April 09, 2002, 10:44:07 PM »

Yeah, there's been a string of changes over the last twenty years.

I realize the legacy of Microsoft's 'foundation' causes problems, but I also realize that the latest development systems MS has created are truly wondrous. I don't have to create a folder full of notes on component design anymore. Rather, I can sit down and start creating a program. I don't know if UNIX has the same thing, I imagine if they don't it's just a matter of time, but this is a truly wonderful approach. Much better then the old hunt-and-peck assembler approach.

Do you remember CHASM (cheap assembler)?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #27 on:** April 10, 2002, 08:25:01 AM »

You bet I remember it Voss. Hehe,.. you know we are showing our age here

.

You can get a full suite of graphical tools for UNIX today. Heck, there is even a VSS module for UNIX. You have to buy these tools, but they are pretty cheap compared to the ripoff MS pricing. At least the UNIX compilers (GNU) generate 32 bit instructions. VC6 still generates a lot of 16 bit instructions even when you tell it to compile for Pentium.

Did you ever get to use the ASM from Tandy? It had a full interactive debugger and development environment much like VC. I am talking about the one for the Models II/16/6000 series. Leather bound, with about 4 8" floppies in the package. It was very nice and way ahead of its time. The programmer that created that got killed in a car wreck about a month after he completed the project. After that it just sort of went away.

Most people are not aware of the giant step backwards the industry took when IBM introduced its original PC. Heck, we had full blown multi-processor systems sitting on desktops before IBM came into the fray.

LePaul · « **Reply #28 on:** April 10, 2002, 10:06:59 AM »

When you said VC6, I immediately thought back of my VIC-20, and later, C-64

I recently sold off my old TRS-80 Model III. It was still working great! Just no room for it no more.

I still have a Tandy 1000 TX and two other mint Tandy's...ones a 386 SX 25, the other a 486 SX 25. Don't know why I keep em, asides that they are in mint shape, run DOS 6.22 and I can play Wolfenstein and Dark Forces on them

Nifty · « **Reply #29 on:** April 10, 2002, 10:50:43 AM »

lisp... hehe.

my programming languages class programming assignments were kinda based on it. We had to write an interpreter in C (I don't think C++) that'd handle a subset of the Scheme language (Scheme is "a statically scoped and properly tail-recursive dialect of the Lisp programming language invented by Guy Lewis Steele Jr. and Gerald Jay Sussman. It was designed to have an exceptionally clear and simple semantics and few different ways to form expressions. A wide variety of programming paradigms, including imperative, functional, and message passing styles, find convenient expression in Scheme.")

Now I'm a web admin and quite bored off my butt. I'd rather program, but I'm just too lazy to move.