Via everywhere

Well, it's all over he blogosphere (well, at least my small corner of it) so I may as well sling in my tuppence worth.

• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition Beta
• Visual C# 2005 Express Edition Beta
• Visual J# 2005 Express Edition Beta
• Visual Web
  Developer 2005 Express Edition Beta
• SQL Server 2005
  Express Edition Technical Preview

Now some of it's quite self explanatory - SQL Server 2005 Express is (according to MS) pretty much a direct replacement for MSDE. Sorted. An updated cheapskates SQL Server engine. I'm all for that. I haven't seen it myself (yet) but Mike Gunderloy reckons it's a lot more functional than MSDE.

But what about the others? Apparently they're aimed at 'enthusiasts and hobbyists'. Now, don't get me started on being a hobbyist programmer, but where do they fit in with the rest of the VS line? Are they just completely standalone projects, kind of like WebMatrix, but with full support? Or are they replacements for the cut-down (cheaper) VB.NET, VC#.NET etc. MS reckons they'll be cheap, but how cheap, I wonder...

If they're completely new parts of the MS dev tools lineup, then that's really cool. Who knows. If it makes programming as easy as MS reckon, I might even manage to get Mrs Mawoo in on it!... Or not...

Anyway. That's all I've got to say about that. Time'll tell, no doubt. When I get a few hours to spare I'll have a look at downloading one of the betas, see how it fares. Need a few spare hours ,though. Darned dial-up connections!