Visual C# Express...

I think I understand the concepts of the Express product line.  In fact, I think I'm a perfect target for their sample market.  By day I'm a technical writer for a software development firm.  By night, I write software on the side for personal use and to keep up with current technology.  At work, I have Visual Studio 2003 Professional on my machine.  At home I'm running C# Express.  Great - except the Express line is missing some key features that used to be available (2003 editions) for the same price point.  Why?

Example:  The C# Express edition does not support the Class Designer (Wizard).

Why not? 

In the 2003 product line I could purchase Visual C# and get access to both web and Windows development for the low price of $109.  It had all the nifty features of the 2003 line and but would only allow me to code in C#.  No biggie there - I would do that anyway.  My understanding is that Visual C# will not be available in the 2005 product line.  (PLEASE GIVE ME A LINK TO ANYTHING THAT MIGHT SAY DIFFERENTLY :)

In the 2005 product line I have to purchase the Express editions.  To get similar (less) functionality I have to purchase Visual C# Express and Visual Web Developer each at $49.  The price is basically the same - but I lose features I had access to in the 2003 version.  Yes, I get access to the other languages - but who cares - I'd use C# anyway.  If it costs the same but has less features - why should I buy it?

To get the same functionality available with the 2003 Visual C# product ($109) I have to purchase the Standard edition of the 2005 product ($500?).  I can't afford that for a hobby.  I really don't want to spend my spare time typing Get/Set every time I create a new class.  (What a waste of life)  I'd rather lose the 2005 "features" and just spend my money on Visual C# 2003.

Am I missing something here?  Whats the compelling reason to purchase?
 
tia
mg

Hi mg,

Thanks for responding on the forum. My name is Dan Fernandez and I'm the C# Product Manager.

I wanted to respond to some of your questions. First thing is on price. The Standard Edition product costs $299 retail and $199 for the upgrade. The Professional version costs $549 for upgrade pricing though.

To your point on missing features in 2005 that were in 2003, The "class/property wizards" for 2003 were replaced by a new tool called Class Designer. Unforutnately the new Class Designer is only in Standard and above. We definitely looked at adding Class Designer into Express. Some customers even provided feedback on Ladybug about adding Class Designer to Express, but it unfortunately only received support from three users. The guiding principle with Express was to make it simple and easy to use. That made us make a lot of difficult decisions as to what features should be cut from the product, especially given that our size goal was approx 30MB for the IDE and that 2003 was a multi-gigabyte install for the full product.

To your specific issue, we observed from C# customers that they spend a lot of time writing code in the code editor. As such, weadded IntelliSense Code Snippets which are fill-in-the-blank snippets of code for common tasks including:

• Creating a class (type "class" and hit tab twice)
• Creating a constructor (type "ctor" and hit tab twice)
• Creating a property (type "prop" and hit tab twice)
• Adding Console.WriteLine (type "cw" and hit tab twice)

You should check out my Channel9 video for a quick tour of features in Visual C# 2005 Express.

The combination of Visual C# and Visual Web Developer Express Editions also adds a number of really valuable features in all areas.

Windows Forms

• Snap Lines, new layout controls for table and flow layout styles, lots of new controls like the ToolStrip control or components like the Background Worker component
• ClickOnce Deployment, RAD application/user settings

Web

• 50+ controls, Master Pages, Themes and skins, tag navigator, IntelliSense for html/javascript/css/xml, Web Parts 
• Base infrastructure including Authorization, Authentication, Personalization, Navigation and more
• built-in FTP deployment tools

Data

• Built-in full version of SQL Server 2005 Express Editon
• Tools for creating tables, database diagrams, stored procedures, views, etc
• Data Sources Window to connect enable drag-and-drop data binding from databases or Web services
• xcopy deployment for your databases
• SQL Data source caching

Editor

• Edit and Continue, improved colorization, more customizable, refactoring, IntelliSense Code Snippets, view metadata as source, "Auto-using" statements,

Debugger

• Edit and Continue, Debugger visualizers, improved data tips, IntelliSense in Watch Windows, the Exception assistant and more

Framework

• Plenty of new classes including serial port classes, improved file i/o, secure strings, compression libraries, improved performance, and more

I honestly can't do the entire product justice, but I know you'll find that it's a valuable product.

Thanks again, I hope you give Visual C# Express a try and let us know what you think! Believe it or not, we're starting on the next release soon so your feedback would be great :)

Thanks,

Dan Fernandez
C# Product Manager
http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/

Hi mg,

Thanks for responding on the forum. My name is Dan Fernandez and I'm the C# Product Manager.

I wanted to respond to some of your questions. First thing is on price. The Standard Edition product costs $299 retail and $199 for the upgrade. The Professional version costs $549 for upgrade pricing though.

To your point on missing features in 2005 that were in 2003, The "class/property wizards" for 2003 were replaced by a new tool called Class Designer. Unforutnately the new Class Designer is only in Standard and above. We definitely looked at adding Class Designer into Express. Some customers even provided feedback on Ladybug about adding Class Designer to Express, but it unfortunately only received support from three users. The guiding principle with Express was to make it simple and easy to use. That made us make a lot of difficult decisions as to what features should be cut from the product, especially given that our size goal was approx 30MB for the IDE and that 2003 was a multi-gigabyte install for the full product.

To your specific issue, we observed from C# customers that they spend a lot of time writing code in the code editor. As such, weadded IntelliSense Code Snippets which are fill-in-the-blank snippets of code for common tasks including:

• Creating a class (type "class" and hit tab twice)
• Creating a constructor (type "ctor" and hit tab twice)
• Creating a property (type "prop" and hit tab twice)
• Adding Console.WriteLine (type "cw" and hit tab twice)

You should check out my Channel9 video for a quick tour of features in Visual C# 2005 Express.

The combination of Visual C# and Visual Web Developer Express Editions also adds a number of really valuable features in all areas.

Windows Forms

• Snap Lines, new layout controls for table and flow layout styles, lots of new controls like the ToolStrip control or components like the Background Worker component
• ClickOnce Deployment, RAD application/user settings

Web

• 50+ controls, Master Pages, Themes and skins, tag navigator, IntelliSense for html/javascript/css/xml, Web Parts 
• Base infrastructure including Authorization, Authentication, Personalization, Navigation and more
• built-in FTP deployment tools

Data

• Built-in full version of SQL Server 2005 Express Editon
• Tools for creating tables, database diagrams, stored procedures, views, etc
• Data Sources Window to connect enable drag-and-drop data binding from databases or Web services
• xcopy deployment for your databases
• SQL Data source caching

Editor

• Edit and Continue, improved colorization, more customizable, refactoring, IntelliSense Code Snippets, view metadata as source, "Auto-using" statements,

Debugger

• Edit and Continue, Debugger visualizers, improved data tips, IntelliSense in Watch Windows, the Exception assistant and more

Framework

• Plenty of new classes including serial port classes, improved file i/o, secure strings, compression libraries, improved performance, and more

I honestly can't do the entire product justice, but I know you'll find that it's a valuable product.

Thanks again, I hope you give Visual C# Express a try and let us know what you think! Believe it or not, we're starting on the next release soon so your feedback would be great :)

Thanks,

Dan Fernandez
C# Product Manager
http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/