[dba-Tech] Visual Studio

Hi Gustav:

Being retired I now have the luxury of looking at the industry as a whole and can play with what ever product catches my immediate interest.  

Before, what ever the customer wanted is what they got. Whether it was some C programming, development work in legacy databases, re-programming a switches, Oracle, MS SQL, web development and even MS Access...a lot of Access. Microsoft products have been very good to me but the market here is changing.

If I was going into the computer business today there would be a whole different set of options to select from than even five years ago. 

Aside: To be honest the market is no longer Microsoft...at least here. A generalist developer is roughly paid double to that of a pure Microsoft programmer or support person...it is all supply and demand and rightly or wrongly, the perception persists. Considering we live within a stone's throw of Redmond, Microsoft has not been doing as good of job, of convincing the locals in retaining their loyalty. IMHO, I personally think Microsoft just doesn't care any more. A few years ago, Microsoft would hold conventions, be very active in the local universities and colleges, approach schools and give preferred pricing, class room training, in their new and old applications, make a strong effort to high-light businesses that were doing leading edge work on MS platforms and so on. I am sure the costs of doing this type of sales work was more expensive, than only pushing out information through the web but it sure developed loyalty and encouraged product adoption. Today, with the budget limitation placed on educational facilities, they are either not advancing to the latest versions of MS OS and/or are migrating to OSS alternatives and in addition local OSS product companies are very active promoting their support options. This means that all the schools are only pushing out non-Microsoft developers.   

With those thoughts in mind, if I was going into business I would learn applications that are not a single OS centric, that would be web based (and that does not mean only run from the internet as development could be within a single network or made to run on just a single computer). So when I stated "limited features and capabilities", I was referring to what environment and what supported programming products the editor is capable of developing in.

In summary, I am very pleased you have found your market niche in a pure Microsoft environment and until about ten years ago that was me as well (...worked for a Microsoft platinum rated company for almost ten years). That is not to say that I think Microsoft products are not excellent but it now appears to be a much bigger world out there, with many equally excellent alternatives.

Jim   

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gustav Brock" <gustav at cactus.dk>
To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 11:29:31 AM
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Visual Studio

Hi Jim

I love you state "limited features and capabilities" even for the ultimate version.

Why not start with the Express version and let's talk about the limitations you find. That said, I use the Pro version which comes with the Action Pack Subscription. I don't think I ever outgrow that. The other versions are for large and enterprise teams.

My previous son-in-law, a PHP-Perl-C#-younameit programmer himself, at the time of VS2005 adviced me that route. But he warned me: If you decide so, you will never look back. 
He was right, although I still do a lot of Access programming. But it seems so much old school, and I miss my VS. VS is built for programmers by programmers and for programming, nothing super-user here, and you feel it. Every feature you discover (and _that_ is an ongoing process) is made to easen the work of the programmer.

I cannot speak about the alternatives you mention. I neither look back nor elsewhere.

/gustav