I currently develop C++ and C# applications with VS2008.
I have the need to have the IDE as well on our target demonstrator platform to debug and fix etc.
Could I use the Express editions for that task or are there any major drawbacks?
Any experience is welcome, also for VS2010.
You would only have to tweak things in order to compile for 64 bit (true only for 2008, that's easy in 2010), but no major functional drawback, except as Binary Worrier says it can be frustrating
However it is commonly accepted to have the full IDE on a target demo platform without buying another license, so why not deploying full IDE on it?
From About Licensing
Developer Tools – per user license
You must acquire a license for each
user you permit to access or use the
software. You may install any number
of copies on any number of devices for
access and use by one user to design,
develop, test and demonstrate
programs. Only licensed users may
access the software.
I normally don't like to just post links as answers, but this Wikipedia Article covers the differences in depth.
I've personally found coming down from the full- to the express-editions painful and limiting, you're forever "bumping your head" off some limitation or missing feature, very frustrating.
I use vs2008 at the buro and vs2008 c# excpess at home.
the limitations i come across were
c# express doesn-t like solution folders containing projects and cannot load other project types (ie setup-projects, mstest projects).
i had no painful and limiting experience yet because i use nunit instead of mstest and only ms-databases. express has advanced options (disabled by default) that give you the debug/release build feature.
by the way you donot need a visual studio to debug dotnet-applications. the dotnet-sdk has a gui debugger that can do the job but it is not as comfortable as vs. to rebuild you can use msbuild.
Related
I want to make small programs for my father company(small company).I want to make his life easier by making small programs for everything he needs(mostly DATABASE MANAGMENT or SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT).I want to program in c++ using visual studio and qt for user interface. But I only have the community visual studio edition and the free qt edition. I am allowed to make programs for his company even thought I didn't buy those software?(qt and visual studio)
Note:The programs will only be used by him! not by his employees.
First, please note that this is a technical forum, not a legal forum.
Anyway here are some elements to think about:
Qt
Qt is available for free under the LGPLv3 or the GPLv3. That means that you can do whatever you want with Qt as long as you comply either with one or the other.
GPL
In practice, it means that if you distribute the application you must also distribute your source code.
LGPLv3
If you distribute the application, you must provide a way for end users to relink against a modified version of Qt. If you use dynamic linking it simply means that the user shall be able to change the Qt dll (or .so) files. But you have to keep in mind that not all Qt modules are available under LGPL, some are published only under the GPL. (https://www.qt.io/licensing-comparison/)
For your case, it seems that you are not going to distribute the application so you do not really care.
Visual Studio Community
On the website we have:
For organizations
An unlimited number of users within an organization
can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a
classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for
contributing to open source projects.
For all other usage scenarios:
In non-enterprise organizations, up to five users can use Visual
Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250
PCs or >$1 Million US Dollars in annual revenue), no use is permitted
beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning
environment scenarios described above.
So basically either you must make your apps open source or your father's company should not have more than 250 PCs or make more that 1 million $ a year.
If you are not illegible your could use:
IDE:
Visual Studio Express (but does not support Qt plugins and the 2017 version is not available)
Qt Creator
any IDE that support qmake or cmake projects
Compiler
MinGW (provided in the Qt Online installer)
Visual C/C++ compiler (provided as part of Visual Studio or as a standalone as "Build Tools for Visual Studio")
I've been writing C/C++ for years using Xcode and am very comfortable with *nix systems. Now I'm working with people who only understand Windows; I've decided to try to learn that environment too.
I was thinking that google would be my best friend, but even the terminology for VS is sufficiently orthogonal to that of Xcode that I can't make any headway. (E.g., what's the equivalent of "Add new Target to project" for VS?)
Can anyone point me to a guide to VS for Xcode practitioners? I've seen lots of translators going the other direction.
Thanks!
I do not know of any XCode to VS Guide, but according to XCode Documentation:
A target specifies a product to build and contains the instructions for building the product from a set of files in a project or workspace.
The analogous concept in Visual Studio would be a project. In Visual Studio, a project contains code files, assets and settings which compile into an output of some sort. (Could be an executable, a DLL, a website, or a few other options...) Projects can reference other projects or other external libraries (System or user libraries) which are all delivered together at compile time.
A solution contains multiple projects which can be related (referenced) and compiled and linked together.
When you first start VS, it will ask you to Open or Create a project. It usually will automatically create a solution and automatically add the project to it. To add additional projects, you can right click the solution in the "Solution Explorer" and add another project.
Hope this helps
I believe what you're looking for is the Build Configuration Manager in Visual Studio. (It's been a while since I've used XCode). As I recall a "Target" in Xcode is how you want the project built. In VS you get a Debug and Release configuration by default but you can use the Build menu and choose "Configuration..." to create more.
I don't know of a tutorial for XCode users but Kate Gregory has some nice beginner screencasts on pluralsight for using Visual Studio 2010. Those may get you over some learning curve hurdles. I think they have a 30 day free trial. If you move on to .NET development they have a lot more that can really help you get up to speed quickly.
Quick Terminology
In Visual Studio you typically create a Solution. A solution can consist of any number of Projects. You can add projects for .DLLs (libraries), services, applications (gui and console based). You can have multiple applications but can only designate one as the Startup Project.
In my typical project I start with the GUI and Add a project of the type I want. Then I often add a library project for new code that I think I can use across multiple applications. Existing code in both supplied libraries and ones you've built are added as References. You can right-click on References in the Solution Explorer and select Add References.
In XCode (when I used it) your IDE consisted of two pieces, XCode and Interface Builder. In Visual Studio you can build interface elements directly in Visual Studio ( but there is also a tool called Blend that allows for UI creation and modification). There are THREE major types of interfaces web (usually an ASP.NET application), WinForms and WPF. I think of WinForms as the equivalent of what you build in IB. WPF is the most recent addition and has lots of advantages but a somewhat steep learning curve.
This is probably oversimplified because VS does so much and I'm mostly familiar with the C# and C++/CLI capabilties. However it also supports Visual F#, Iron Python, Iron Ruby, Visual Basic, Sharepoint, Office Integration,Silverlight, XNA, etc.
Visual Studio is very extensible. There are lots of extensions to make it integrate with other tools. There are also a couple of extremely useful extensions that make refactoring and writing code easier, my personal favorite is ReSharper from JetBrains.
I'm curious about your thoughts on moving to a new IDE (specifically Eclipse). I have been hearing wonderful things about it from this community and I'm always on the lookout to try new things.
Currently I'm running Visual Studio 2005, with a bunch of external commands loaded (for compiling down to a binary, running lint, etc). We're developing C code for microcontrollers.
I've read over some of the other threads on here about the advantages and disadvantages to Eclipse and Visual Studio (specifically SO - best IDE thread and SO - best C IDE thread), but I'd like to hear your thoughts on using it for programming an embedded environment. I'd imagine that there is a simple way to use the external tools that Visual Studio currently uses (it simply calls various batch files that we've created).
Is it worth it to specifically switch over to Eclipse?
Answer to you question about way to call external tools: no problem - from eclispe you can anything: external program, batch file etc. Moreover, if you use custom build generator - you could use it transparent with eclipse.
I don't think I would switch from Visual Studio to Eclipse in hopes of getting a better IDE. Typically an embedded manufacturer makes plugins and toolchains that work specificially with Eclispe, that's what makes it worth using in the Embedded world. For example with the NetBurner plug-ins, when creating a new project you can just select New NetBurner Device Excecutable, or New NetBurner Library, all the default includes and libraries get set up for you and the proper cross platform tool chain is set up for you automatically. In the NetBurner case it also uses the Eclipse managed build process (as opposed to make files) which I find nice. There is also support for using make files if you prefer that option.
While I have a couple of tools set up to run as external tools (lint, an auto version updater, DOS prompt etc) most steps can be triggered from pre-build or post-build steps or there are many many add-ons for common needs like source code management, bug tracking, etc. There is great support for SVN, Trac and Mylyn for example. I use both VS2010 and Eclipse. I like them both but VS2010 is the better IDE. It's a little hard to compare because I do C# (and a little C++/CLI )in VS and C++ in Eclipse. That said, I wouldn't relish the though of trying set up VS to do my embedded tasks.
I've been programming in Linux/UNIX for several years now, but recently I needed to do some stuff in VS2008. I had difficulties with understanding how VS organizes work. Do you know any resources (free web pages preferred, but books also acceptable) which would show me a general picture and explain at least some details? Examples welcome, comparison with typical UNIX stack very welcome.
I don't need a language (C#/C++/VB/...) reference/guide; I've seen some of them and none of them seem to suggest how to work with VS efficiently.
You might be interested in introductions to MSBuild, the project format of Visual Studio. Whereas in UNIX you have a autoconfig script, and Makefiles, VS2008 allows most configuration through right clicks and menu options.
A second area of interest will likely be build configurations. Instead of re-running the configure script on different targets, or for different stacks, you specify targets with the configuration manager. Once you select a new configuration ("x86", or "Release", or custom ones like "Production"), VS churns for a while, as it updates the Intellisense of your new preprocessor definitions, for example, and Resource files. Your "Debug" configuration will likely define the macro "DEBUG", so you can use regions surrounded with #ifdef DEBUG, for example.
Visual Studio organizes common groups of source files into "Projects", which can be referenced by one or more "Solutions". Projects establish interdependency on one another, and external libraries. If you look at the structure of the projects in the Microsoft Enterprise Library, you will notice that there are several different Solution files (*.sln) which encompass different groups of common project files. You might have a different solution file, for example, if you want to reduce load/compile time, by not loading the unit test projects with every build.
So, analogies:
UNIX way:
# ./configure
# make
# nano Makefile
# make
VS2008 way:
# (Set up "Project Properties", Conditional Compilation Symbols, Build Paths, all from GUI application)
# (Click Build)
# (Change Configuration)
# (Click Build)
I don't have any links for you, but:
Visual Studio can open one and only one Solution at a time
A Solution may have zero (not very useful) or more Projects
Code (in whatever language) goes into projects
Projects can have any number of files and/or directories
Projects can reference files anywhere, not just within their own directory structure (though few do)
Visual Studio is a very flexible and powerful IDE. I think the best way to get the big picture is to build that big picture yourself in your own terms by using the heck out of it.
Build configurations and project properties are definitely two areas you will want to focus on.
You should explore the various options and configuration switches for generating assemblies and how they are managed in general. Learning the various build options and how assemblies are managed can save you headaches down the road.
The VS debugger is a thing of beauty and I recommend investing some time in exploring its capabilities. I recommend you familiarize yourself with:
Breakpoint management (especially the breakpoint window) and also conditional breakpoints
The Watch and Locals windows
Thread and Memory windows and tools
Immediate window (often overlooked and underrated if you ask me)
Finally, you should take a look at some tried and tested tools and plugins and get familiar with them. I would personally recommend ReSharper, Dependancy Walker, and .NET Reflector. ReSharper is an excellent productivity tool and Dependancy Walker and .NET Reflector are excellent analysis and debugging aids
Here's a couple of handy stackoverflow threads:
Do you have any recommended add-ons/plugins for Microsoft Visual Studio?
Favourite Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts
Have you considered installing cygwin and gcc? If you're looking to write a console app, it might just do the trick.
A colleague and I are writing an application that we intend to go Open Source with and are trying to decide on a testing framework. Without integration of NUnit (one of us has resharper while the other does not) we are leaning toward MSTest. However, if the majority of people that work on opensource .net applications only have the express edition of Visual Studio, we may have to change our mind on that.
What version of VS do you use and would MSTest turn you off to an Open Source Project?
Personally, I'm using VS:TS, so no, test units in MSTest wouldn't turn anything off for me ;), on the other hand, most probably, you will receive different answers from the majority of people, that are not professional programmers as well (working for money doesn't mean you can not work with / on OS projects) (the question is, how many you will find here).
However, if I understand you correctly, you don't want to use nUnit, because you it's not integrated with VS08, you might then check out these projects:
1. http://sourceforge.net/projects/visualnunit/
2. http://sourceforge.net/projects/nunitaddin/
Integrating NUnit with VS08 doesn't seem to the biggest problem, on the other hand, getting VS with built in testing framework might be a bit harder, at least for some people.
If I truly felt strongly enough to participate in the Open Source project, MSTest alone wouldn't be enough to turn me away. I'd be willing to adapt to whatever the development tools/environment was.
...and for what it's worth, I use the full version of Visual Studio with Resharper.
Frankly I never heared of anyone using the Express editions. everybody I know or I talked with either use the fully fledged Visual Studio environment, or they use the compiler/libraries from the free SDK and some editor on top of it (CodeWarrior, CodeInsight etc) and rely on some variant of make to build.
As for the test framework, is a double edged sword. I'd recommend NUnit, but then... remember what happened with NDoc?
I use MonoDevelop and NUnit.
I use VS 2k8 pro & MSTest as much as possible.
Even Microsoft's open source code (Prism/Composite Wpf) doesn't use MSTest. They use NUnit for that project, I believe.
You may be able to use visual nunit to add an nunit test runner in VS. link I've never used it but it may be worth a shot.
If your problem is integration with Visual Studio, try Gallio. It includes MbUnit, but its runner can run tests from other frameworks, like NUnit, xUnit, etc.
It would turn me off. See MSBuild, NAnt, NUnit, MSTest, and frustration (not written by me!) - I suspect a number of people feel that way. MSBuild seems like a poorly-done copy of NAnt (we use both), and MSTest likewise looks like Microsoft's usual "not invented here" answer to open source. While I realize that there are good business reasons for Microsoft to develop their own tools, those reasons don't apply to their customers.
There are plug-ins to use NUnit inside Visual Studio without ReSharper, or you can always configure it to run from the Tools menu.
If you don't like NUnit, please consider one of the other open source testing alternatives. See NUnit vs. MbUnit vs. MSTest vs. xUnit.net
I think that people who don't use windows will be knocked out of the project by the choice to use MSTest. Most other c# testing libraries are available in mono, which is what mac and linux users would be using.
I don't know how many cross-platform developers you are trying to attract, but if it's an issue then you need to consider Linux/Mac devs.