It's Official, I've Converted: Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition Is Full Visual Studio For Free By jsa005

By @jsa005
POSTED: 16 Nov 2014 09:22
CATEGORY: Technology
FEATURED: Yes (@Sk8rJess)
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Visual Studio Now Free
Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition is fully featured and completely freeWell, I didn't expect that.
Hello, probably-technically-minded-or,-alternatively,-just-bored SDKers! jsa here with some news on Microsoft's popular Visual Studio IDE. Microsoft recently announed that they were going to release a fully-featured version of Visual Studio for free to independent developers and small teams (up to 5 people), and larger organisations if they are using it for an open-source project. Just to be clear, small (<5 users) teams and independent developers don't need to make their code open-source (though it is encouraged), only larger (5+ users) organisations must meet this requirement. Anyway, let's get this blog on the road, starting with some info from the blurb:

What's in Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition
• Professional grade editing, code analysis and debugging support
• Support for open-source workflows (Git)
• Cross-platform mobile development for your preferred device and platform, including the web, Android, iOS and Windows Phone with the free Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova extension
• Take advantage of cloud services with simplified Azure SDK integration and incorporate modern app analytics and telemetry with Application Insights
• Access to all the Visual Studio 2013 extensions in the Visual Studio Gallery
• Visual Studio Community 2013 includes Update 4, which is a culmative update of all previous Visual Studio 2013 updates

What the heck is Apache Cordova, anyway?
Apache Cordova, not to be confused with the Spanish explorer Francisco Fernandez de Cordova, the city in Spain or the city in Argentina,

is a platform for making mobile apps using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, providing JavaScript access to all of the device's features without making you to write a single line of C/C++ code. It's the technology underpinning PhoneGap, a name more app developers might know. It's quite interesting to me, as I'm very good with HTML, CSS (as you can see with this blog, that header is not pre-rendered, try selecting the text or zooming in), JavaScript and PHP, but terrible at C, C++ and Python. (I'm a dab hand with Visual Basic .NET, though) I've always wanted to make an app (even though I don't have a smartphone or tablet myself), and now this is my chance, I guess.

So, what else do you get in Visual Studio?
First and foremost, you get Microsoft's Visual Basic .NET and C# (C-sharp) programming languages, which are good for beginners to making Windows applications but also used by more professional programmers. Next you have Windows Forms. This is your basic application window design framework, not quite as flexible as its big brother WPF (we'll get to that in a moment) but still good to start off making your own applications with. Windows Forms uses a drag-and-drop interface to place objects on a window, which range from text, images and form objects (normal buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, text input fields, etc) to Windows COM objects allowing you to embed (for example) Windows Media Player or Adobe Flash Player into your application to play a video or run a game. However, using COM controls generally isn't recommended by the community, so you should really look into other methods of doing this. With the anti-COM control lecture dealt with, let's move on to WPF.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
WPF is what the pros use for their .NET applications. WPF is a bit like Windows Forms, but it's based on a specification called XAML (XML Application Markup Language), created by Microsoft in 2006. WPF supports all of the cool new stuff, like extended Windows Aero (full window opacity) and is the preferred way to develop Windows applications with the .NET Framework now.

I've hit the 3DS character limit, so I'm going to move the CSS. Brb

by jsa, 16 Nov. 2014. rev. 1

+5 -0

jsa005
17 Nov 2014 09:46

I wonder if anybody read the bit at the bottom saying this blog isn't finished yet b/c I ran out of space b/c of all the CSS. Meh

Waffle King
17 Nov 2014 01:53

Sweet. I had a student version on my old laptop, but I'm buying a new gaming laptop soon. I'll have to grab this when I do.

Monstercat
17 Nov 2014 02:10
In reply to Waffle King

What a skrub.

Buying a "gaming" laptop?

Build a PC instead, you pleb.

( ͡º ͜ʖ ͡º

Monstercat
17 Nov 2014 01:37

Good guy Microsoft.

I like that they are not screwing people over with outrageously priced subscriptions anymore.

lilwayne1556
17 Nov 2014 00:42

99% of people don't know what this is and why it's cool but for the 1% who do(like me) are happy inside and barely cares.

jsa005
17 Nov 2014 09:47
In reply to lilwayne1556

No, on this site 98% don't know, 2% do and 1% care

DripDrop
16 Nov 2014 22:30

Shocking

It's Official, I've Converted: Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition Is Full Visual Studio For Free

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