I've just started at a new school, and being affiliated with the EECS department I'm automatically signed up for free M$ products on MSDN. In other words, I can now download any M$ product for free.

Most people would be excited at the thought of "all of that expensive software for free," but I've felt for several years that *nix has a more solid development core available for "free," though without all of the "fanciness" (or the near-mandatory dependence on your IDE.)

At initial glance, one would also say that it would be silly not to take advantage of what would cost me thousands of dollars at any other time. I certainly know where I stand on the issue, though, which is that I'll stick with my *nix.

So what do you think about this situation in general? It makes me wonder how much of an overhead cost that generates for the school and how it's paid for, whether monetarily or otherwise.
ta0kira

I have similar access through my University. I downloaded them all and stuck them in a tarball somewhere in my home directory. I always tell myself that I'll use them to test the cross-platform portability of my software, but in reality I haven't done that yet :-). One of these days though...

In my completely uninformed guess of an opinion, I think the school just pays a single lump price for all it's students. I don't think we could save our departments any money by turning them down.

I'm at a research institution, so maybe they have some sort of research exchange.
ta0kira

IIRC, Microsoft lets anyone join the MSDN for a heavily discounted price, which provides all/most Microsoft Software, but under a heavily restricted license.

i.e. if you use their compiler to compile a program, then you're breaking copyright by giving or selling that program to someone else.

I'm not a member of MSDN myself, but one of my workmates is and this is the gist of what he told me. So it may or may not be accurate.

That sounds about right. Hell, even Borland's C++ Builder's (BCB6) "personal use" license (still $30 or so) pretty much says you can't even give someone else source code even edited using the software. I'd have had to pay $1,000 or so just to write open-source software with it legally. It was a terrible IDE and compiler and I hated having to pay for it, which was one of my reasons for going *nix in the first place.
ta0kira

The advantage for M$ is that you get used to using M$ products. What would you grab first when you are in your first job and you have to show performance? It is also a politcal statement M$ makes "look how nice we are for educational purpuses. How can you accuse us for that we we are only interested in money?"

If you accept the offer, and start using M$ products you are likely to continue doing that for the next 10 years in your career. If you feel happy with that you should proceed.

I don't see any reason to use M$ products, especially when you are in a research environment. *nix is already strong there and you won't become isolated.

jlinkels

Edit: you are right, I wouldn't go back an use M$, not even if I get it for free

Yes, that pretty much sums up what I think about the whole thing.
ta0kira

Ok are we talking about MSDNAA here?
Gets the programmes, why? My opinion (which is what was asked for) is Visual Studio is hands down the best C++ IDE on the market.
If MSDNAA then this is wrong, you are free to use the IDE to compile non commercial applications.

I'd suggest getting the MSVC and IDE so you can become familiar with the MS environment and have a better understanding of the cross-platform issues. It would be silly to limit yourself to Linux + GCC only. I found the IDE very useful (with autocompletion + quick access to the MSDN articles). I can't say I really miss it, but it's nice to have if you've got it. If you're familiar with MSVC, when you go to get a job you can always say you can program C with MSVC and with GCC as well - WinDuhs, Linux, Solaris, BSD - do them all. You also gain rights to laugh at the people who only know MSVC.

Also (not that I'm endorsing this *cough*) as long as you released final win32 binaries compiled with mingw, nobody would know that you did or did not use MSVC* to check the compatibility.

well i own a copy of visual studio ,it is on my xp drive .However it has been about a year or more since i last used it.I found that 98% of the code i build on windows is linux so i use dev c++ in MinGW or CycWin. so install visual studio from msdn but you may find that you don't use it ,unless you have to for a class .

It is very well possible to develop cross platform using non M$ compiler and IDE.

jlinkels

I suppose it would be a good exercise in discipline and character building to try it out. I do have an old laptop I could throw Windows and VS on. That's a good point that it doesn't make sense to not pick up a skill when it's offered; who knows who I'll work for. But I promise not to like it!
ta0kira

I dont buy this statement. If you know where you stand on the issue, then why are you still thinking about using $$$ products?

Everyone has their opinion.

The VS IDE drives me absolutely crazy. I do like the form layout tool - at least, initially. What I despise is the fact that it won't stop. It insists on re-generating its code (and without asking me) on its schedule. I therefore am FORCED into a design philosophy whereby I cannot modify any of the code the form tool generated, because the form tool will then erase my changes. This leads to program architectures which I consider to be inconvenient and sub-optimal.

I hate how when I am copying a line of code (typing in a line that will have a small difference from another line), it tries to present me with my choices for properties and methods for the object it recognizes when I type it in, thereby blocking the line of text I am trying to nearly duplicate, thus forcing me to grab the mouse and click someplace else, then click back to my spot to make it GO AWAY!!! That it can give me my choices is great, but it should wait until I ask.

I also hate how long VS takes to load, and I despise the fact that every time it starts it tries to contact the mother ship. I actually have it blocked at the firewall.

I could go on, but there is no point. Everyone has their opinion; this is mine.

All I can say is that Clippy is not dead; he has morphed into the VS WIzard.