Great feedback here, most excellent; thanks for your help!
In the LAMP world, dev tools are, well, very inexpensive. ;) However, if I want the semblance of tool parity on the MS side, I must fork over some cash. I've been told there are plans that bundle a number of packages as well as mitigate package costs, like MS's TechNet plan.
So here I am migrating from Open Source web development. To be clear, I'm much closer to the UI/HTML/CSS end of dev and bad days are marked by the amount of time I spent on the logic end of things. Hence, I don't have a valid MS/OS license, which puts me in a financial problem; and, unlike, say, vim, I have to fork out dough for Visual Studio (or continue with Express) though I continue to much prefer vim over the editor in Express.
I continue to have my "Plan B" ready (ditch the whole .NET effort) — heck, I could be studying Ruby on Rails right now — MS doesn't make this easy:
Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN Essentials $549
Microsoft TechNet Subscription Standard: $199
Thoughts and advice from the cognescenti?
Thanks!
ps: then there's this whole MVC matter, but, right now, I'm focusing on the best dev environment, given that I'll be focusing on an umbraco-centric web development framework.
Have you seen Microsoft WebsiteSpark program ? It costs $100 upon exit after 3 years, and included are licences for Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2 (Web edition) for both dev and production use, as well as Visual Studio Professional 2010.
Recommended MS Dev tools package?
All,
Great feedback here, most excellent; thanks for your help!
In the LAMP world, dev tools are, well, very inexpensive. ;) However, if I want the semblance of tool parity on the MS side, I must fork over some cash. I've been told there are plans that bundle a number of packages as well as mitigate package costs, like MS's TechNet plan.
Any recommendations for a new initiate?
TIA
So here I am migrating from Open Source web development. To be clear, I'm much closer to the UI/HTML/CSS end of dev and bad days are marked by the amount of time I spent on the logic end of things. Hence, I don't have a valid MS/OS license, which puts me in a financial problem; and, unlike, say, vim, I have to fork out dough for Visual Studio (or continue with Express) though I continue to much prefer vim over the editor in Express.
I continue to have my "Plan B" ready (ditch the whole .NET effort) — heck, I could be studying Ruby on Rails right now — MS doesn't make this easy:
Thoughts and advice from the cognescenti?
Thanks!
ps: then there's this whole MVC matter, but, right now, I'm focusing on the best dev environment, given that I'll be focusing on an umbraco-centric web development framework.
Hi Kyle,
Have you seen Microsoft WebsiteSpark program ? It costs $100 upon exit after 3 years, and included are licences for Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2 (Web edition) for both dev and production use, as well as Visual Studio Professional 2010.
HTH,
Hendy
Hendy,
It helps immensely; that is cool and does mitigate many cost factors. That sounds like the "right" answer, too. Any other ideas?
Kyle
Hendy,
Whoops! Wrote too soon. Update forthcoming.
Kyle
Yep, I'm giving the WebSpark program a go. I'd prefer a lighter-weight desktop OS for development, but it's not like MS is open-source or anything.
Thanks! — Kyle
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