[ale] OT: Windows 8 Open Source development crippled

[JD]

On 05/30/2012 11:34 AM, Vernard Martin wrote:
> Or rather more crippled than normal. This message came across a 
> distribution list where I work.
> 
> For anyone with an eye towards development work on Windows 8, the only 
> “free” to use version of Visual Studio Express will only make “metro” 
> friendly touch style apps and web pages. Development for desktop will 
> require Visual Studio Pro at about $500 a copy. But if you are a clever 
> developer you may say to yourself, “Fine, I’ll just use the Windows SDK 
> C++ compiler... stripped down but good enough!” Well, MS thought of that 
> too and the compiler is being stripped from the Windows SDK. At the end 
> of the day, this means that there will be less desktop freeware for 
> Window 8 and most new freeware will likely use the Windows 7 SDK, so 
> there’s really no point in Windows 8 for desktops. So, this means 
> Windows 8 is going to be a lot like Vista, only not as good.
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/no-cost-desktop-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8/
> 

Perhaps I'm just slow, but can't windows devs looking for a free setup use gcc
and GTK or Qt?  There will be a learning curve, since their crutch with VS
completing parameters will be gone until they get a new IDE setup, but still ...

Back when I did MS-Windows development, only a paid version of MS-Studio was
available.  Of course, on all the other platforms we used g++, so it was Windows
that was the hassle for our team.

I can't imagine that SDK changes between Win7 and Win8 for desktop apps are
really much different. MS builds in backwards compatibility for at least the
last OS, if not the last 5-10 yrs worth.

If they are professional developers, addicted to VS, they will already have a
$500 license anyway - I know I did.

Switching to GNU tools would be better anyway - better for F/LOSS and Linux.