Microsoft Takes New Development Track

Microsoft Takes New Development Track:
"In addition to efforts to recruit developers through its many high-school and college programs, Microsoft is looking to its recently announced Express tools to bring in a new class of developers. Microsoft announced the Express versions of its Visual Studio tools at Tech Ed Europe last month, saying the tools are aimed at casual developers, hobbyists and students.

At the conference, Microsoft announced Express versions of its popular tools, including Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, for building Web sites and Web services; Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, which is aimed at helping beginners learn to program; and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, a lightweight version of SQL Server, also for students and hobbyists, among others.…"

Two developers said they were impressed with the Express tools but put off by Microsoft's marketing plans. Tim Huckaby, CEO of InterKnowlogy LLC, in Carlsbad, Calif., said Microsoft is "selling itself short and doing a small disservice to the Express tools when they proclaim them to be 'for hobbyists, enthusiasts and students.' To me, that type of statement implies that the Express line is a set of toys.

"Those who have seen or used them know this is far from the case. There is no reason in the world that highly scalable enterprise software cannot be built in the Express tools," Huckaby said.

Huckaby said he can envision business analysts and nontechnical users using the Express tools to prototype applications. "How perfect is a world where part of the design is a prototype built by the business owner of the project itself?" he asked. "Then they throw it over the wall to the developers to build."

Stephen Forte, chief technology officer of New York-based Corzen Inc., agreed. Forte said he began programming using macros because he found using professional tools "intimidating." But after working with the program for a while, he moved on to master other tools and languages, he said. Forte said the Express tools are quite capable. "What's great about the Express products is that they use the full-blown .Net Framework," he said.…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1636268,00.asp