Anyone try out Visual Express Betas?

[wyrd]

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/

Awsome stuff, just awsome. Lightweight IDEs that (hopefully) will be in the price range of hobbiest like myself. Ive been toying with the C# one today and so far it has everything that I need (I program games, if anyone wants to know what I use it for). Not to mention, its an awsome chance to try out C# 2.0 early. And heck, the IDE improvements are nothing to scoff at (the improved intellisense is nothing short of phenomenal).

Maybe Im a bit more happy about these than others. Ive been using the academic version of Visual Studio 2002 (yes, 2002). Because its academic, I cant upgrade it, and the school I attend does not provide them for free. Meh. At least now, with Express editions, Ill be able to buy them at a decent price and also have the benefit of upgrading them.

Anyway, anyone else give the beta stuff a try? What do you think?

 

[Volte]

I installed the Visual Studio 2005 Beta off of MSDN and although it is still buggy it is in a usable state. Awesome stuff. I hope it comes out before my MSDN subscription runs out at the beginning of next year....


And they finally added in modern style toolbars, menus, statusbars and the like, thank god! Now its time to learn .NET all over again.

 

[Denaes]

I installed the Visual Studio 2005 Beta off of MSDN and although it is still buggy it is in a usable state. Awesome stuff. I hope it comes out before my MSDN subscription runs out at the beginning of next year....


And they finally added in modern style toolbars, menus, statusbars and the like, thank god! Now its time to learn .NET all over again.

Those express things piss me off

I HATE that crap Microsoft pulls where they let you download the "loader" and then you sit and watch their cruddy "loader" do the actual application, which takes like 3x as long as it should (what are they choking the bandwidth so you cant download as fast?). Then after all that trouble and waiting for 5 hours for it to download, it "pretends" to install, but doesnt!!

You restart your computer, then the program isnt there!!

This happened with XP Home. I thought it was a problem with my OS. I got VB 2005 Express to install on the second time. What was it doing the first time? I dont know.

So I put windows 2000 pro back on my machine and I go to download C# Express. Same situation!

Id download 2005 beta Studio, but apparently thats for MSDN subscribers only. You can get a disc mailed to you for a price. Its not the money, but if I want it, I want it. I dont like dealing with the snail mail. In fact last time MS mailed me anything (A free copy of VB 2003 standard) it took over a month.

So Im thinking I might download C# Express tonite and see if my pattern of "installs on the second time" is holding. What happened to all of the files and 10 minutes of configuring my settings the first time, Ill never know.

I just wish theyd let you download the .exe setup files and run it from your computer. But then I guess there would be widespread piracy of something MS is giving out for free

 

[Denaes]

Ok, apparently the first time I installed C# Express, it just installed the Framework v2.0. That wasnt on my list of downloads this time, and I didnt download the Server Express, but I thought it would be downright silly to install C# Express and not the MSDN attached to it. Well see if it actually installs this time

 

[wyrd]

Ok, apparently the first time I installed C# Express, it just installed the Framework v2.0. That wasnt on my list of downloads this time, and I didnt download the Server Express, but I thought it would be downright silly to install C# Express and not the MSDN attached to it. Well see if it actually installs this time

I didnt have any probs downloading and installing on my system. Took maybe 30 minutes for the whole process, max. It is beta though, so Im sure things are bound to go wrong.

 

[wyrd]

I installed the Visual Studio 2005 Beta off of MSDN and although it is still buggy it is in a usable state. Awesome stuff. I hope it comes out before my MSDN subscription runs out at the beginning of next year....


And they finally added in modern style toolbars, menus, statusbars and the like, thank god! Now its time to learn .NET all over again.

I especially love the toolstrip.

 

[Denaes]

Ok downloaded and it worked this time

Not sure how to target the MSDN Express 2005 as there isnt a shortcut or Menu Item for it. Opening Help in C# Express seems to bring up the standard IDE help, not MSDN. Another Beta issue or something?

So far the intellisense and speed blow 2003 out of the water. Even an Intellisense and Refactor menu

You cant legally distribute anything created with it, but I can see - for the time being - doing all my coding in C# Express and Copying the code back to 2003 for final distrobution and compilation.

 

[wyrd]

You know.. I think I just realized that theres no express edition for the mobile version of .NET. Microsoft decide that it wasnt worth the bother? I figured itd be in the individual language express (like C#, C++, VB, etc), but I see no option to create such an app.

Anyone hear anything about this?

 

[Denaes]

Awsome stuff, just awsome. Lightweight IDEs that (hopefully) will be in the price range of hobbiest like myself.

Just some quick notes.

First off, I LOVE C# 2005. Its just awesome. And thats just the express BETA version. It should get better. But unfortunately as I need to work and produce results and 2005 has no "go live" liscence, I need to continue to work in 2003.

As to it being "lightweight", I think not.

DevEnv.exe (visual studio 2003) normally takes up between 40 and 80 megs of ram. Thats for a project that spans 15 forms and 30 or so classes.

C# 2005 would regularily take up 200-300mb of ram. I have 512 and if I was doing multitasking (IE open, MS Word, winamp/DVD player) it would start pushing my computer into using virtual memory on the hard drive. So much for .Net apps giving up extra memory if its needed elsewere.

Yeah, I was truely impressed by the functionality of C#, but really all it was doing was bringing up to near par with VBs intellisense and smart code and including some much needed bracket highlighting.

As to the price... the 2003 "Standard" editions of C# and VB were both retailed at 109 and everyone online was selling them for 99 bucks. Im not sure how that wasnt in the average hobbiests pricerange. If you were really a hobbiest and not interested in making money, you could get the Student "Standards" for like 30 bucks each and Studio for like 150. Cant sell the code, but its fine for a hobby

I personally cannot wait for 2005 to come out. Really, I havnt been this excited about software in a LONG time.

 

[wyrd]

Well, beta is ment to be used for testing purposely only, and to send bug reports when you find them. Its not ment for commercial use. Hence beta. However, theres nothing stopping you from developing your project with the beta version, then buying the full retail version when its released. But maybe your project wont take that long.

I think by "lightweight" they mean it doesnt have as many features. Also to note, it actually loads faster for me than VS 2002 does. No idea how much memory it sucks up, I only 256, and it runs fine while Im doing other stuff.

C# has several new features which will no doubt convert many hardcore C++ users; templates, partial classes, anonymous methods, and more. The new intellisense is cool and all, but I never had a problem with the old one. *shrug*

I got the Academic version for free, and thats certainly in my hobby price range.

Just some quick notes.

First off, I LOVE C# 2005. Its just awesome. And thats just the express BETA version. It should get better. But unfortunately as I need to work and produce results and 2005 has no "go live" liscence, I need to continue to work in 2003.

As to it being "lightweight", I think not.

DevEnv.exe (visual studio 2003) normally takes up between 40 and 80 megs of ram. Thats for a project that spans 15 forms and 30 or so classes.

C# 2005 would regularily take up 200-300mb of ram. I have 512 and if I was doing multitasking (IE open, MS Word, winamp/DVD player) it would start pushing my computer into using virtual memory on the hard drive. So much for .Net apps giving up extra memory if its needed elsewere.

Yeah, I was truely impressed by the functionality of C#, but really all it was doing was bringing up to near par with VBs intellisense and smart code and including some much needed bracket highlighting.

As to the price... the 2003 "Standard" editions of C# and VB were both retailed at 109 and everyone online was selling them for 99 bucks. Im not sure how that wasnt in the average hobbiests pricerange. If you were really a hobbiest and not interested in making money, you could get the Student "Standards" for like 30 bucks each and Studio for like 150. Cant sell the code, but its fine for a hobby

I personally cannot wait for 2005 to come out. Really, I havnt been this excited about software in a LONG time.

 

[MadMaxMSCN]

I got vb 2005 express beta on my computer. had no time to test it, but installation was hell:

it lastet over one hour to install it, or better watching installing it itself

... and downloading was not the biggest part of this time