- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
- Location
- Oklahoma City
For those that are not familiar, XCode is a free, full-featured IDE from Apple for OSX development. What is important here is that it is free and full-featured. I'm kind of in shock that Microsoft doesn't offer something similar. Sure, I can download their express edition, but it is crippled at best and seems to exist for no other purpose than to force developers to buy the expensive full version. I've used XCode. It is quite powerful and easy to use.
I find the disparity between Apple and Microsoft on this matter rather odd. Apple, with their lower market share, freely gives away software to invite more people to develop apps for their OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, sees fit to charge market price for the same software. That may not be a problem for professional developers, but if you're not a professional developer, you're left with few, if any, options. Even the cheapest version of Visual Studio would take no less than three full paychecks in order for me to buy it. It would seem that Microsoft only wants professional developers to write code for their OS's.
I'd like to try my hand at Windows 7 (Vista) programming as well as x64 programming. What is out there (C/C++) that allows this and at a price that wont require me to get a loan? Are there any open source IDE's that support Vista and/or 64-bit programming? All I have access to right now is a very old version of Borland's IDE, which is fine for 32-bit XP development, but nothing more.
Any help would be appreciated.
I find the disparity between Apple and Microsoft on this matter rather odd. Apple, with their lower market share, freely gives away software to invite more people to develop apps for their OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, sees fit to charge market price for the same software. That may not be a problem for professional developers, but if you're not a professional developer, you're left with few, if any, options. Even the cheapest version of Visual Studio would take no less than three full paychecks in order for me to buy it. It would seem that Microsoft only wants professional developers to write code for their OS's.
I'd like to try my hand at Windows 7 (Vista) programming as well as x64 programming. What is out there (C/C++) that allows this and at a price that wont require me to get a loan? Are there any open source IDE's that support Vista and/or 64-bit programming? All I have access to right now is a very old version of Borland's IDE, which is fine for 32-bit XP development, but nothing more.
Any help would be appreciated.