Difference between VB.Net Standard and Professional? Other than 10 fold in cost

[patrickfindlay]

Whats the main difference between VB.Net Standard and Proffesional?

I know proffesional has server explorer and remote debugging etc, I have been to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/howtobuy/choosing.asp but I get the feeling there should be a major degree of functionality in proffesional thats not in standard and I cant see it... What is it huh?

Your help appreciated.

[The Hobo]

I've heard that there is a great deal of stuff you can't do in Standard. Someone posted on Amazon that the Learning VB.Net book that he bought contained many basic coding examples that couldn't be done with Standard.

"I purchased Microsoft Visual Basic.NET Standard under the misinformation that I was getting an actual functioning development package. I also purchased a book to help me get started "Using MS Visual Basic.NET" from Que. It was only after I attempted to work through the web application example did I find the problem. I only received a small portion of the program, which did not even let me work though the simple examples in the book.

Not only did I need the "Professional" version to perform any of the examples shown in the book; I needed to upgrade my operating system from XP Home Edition to XP Professional. This fact was well hidden in the documentation. In fact, it was only when I tried to install some missing files did I find that I could not create web applications. I could not create DLL's. I couldn't do a lot of the basic functions.

So in order to just use the program as advertised, I would need to spend another [$]+ to upgrade to the Professional version of VB and another [$] for XP Professional. Sure with rebate, it is "only" [$], but I am already into it for [$] for the VB.NET Standard.

The advertisement on the box states that I can upgrade my VB 6 applications, create XML documents, create class libraries. I can't even work through the simple examples, because the tools are not included.

Don't bother purchasing this edition. It may be a great product for the professional programer, but it is priced out of the league for the rest of us mortals."

Is the review found here.

[patrickfindlay]

Cheers.

I think the review is some what unfair, but with some foundation. The thing I would pick up from that is that he says VB.net does not allow you to create web applications, which is untrue as I have already used it to do so, but, the problem is that I can only run them on my own pc. Because there is no server explorer I cannot locate remote web hosts and deploy my application there. Being green to programming, the whole thing is a bit of a grey area to me, but I think I have a solution. I'm going to buy macromedias Dreamweaver MX on Monday when it is released.

The reason I asked this question is because I am considering going to VB.Net Pro...... But thats £800!!! Thats alot of dosh for home use.

[The Hobo]

Originally posted by patrickfindlay
Dreamweaver MX

[patrickfindlay]

What does that mean?

I take it i'm blaspeming....

[The Hobo]

Dreamweaver's giant waste of money in my opinion. But don't listen to me. Go spend.

[rjlohan]

Originally posted by The Hobo
Dreamweaver's giant waste of money in my opinion. But don't listen to me. Go spend.

Not if you want to integrate other Macromedia content. Macromedia does some good work really. Makes things much easier.

[The Hobo]

Yeah, I guess I would have to agree in that aspect. But since each of their products is up in the multiple hundreds, I have to automatically favor them poorly. I just can't understand why you'd charge that much for software, aside from you wanting alot of money.

[jim mcnamara]

Answer - it's not like McDonald's - where a mediocre product is sold in VAST quantities at a low price.

MacroMedia products give a good return for the cost, called ROI in business. They don't expect youy to buy a 'professional' edition, for example. They provide complete functionality.

[rjlohan]

They charge that much because people will pay it. If you are a professional, you won't have time to sit around building web sites in notepad. Let alone fully functional multimedia ones.

That's just one arm of Macromedia too. I use Authorware a bit, which is designed to develop interactive multimedia training materials. I could always do the whole thing myself in VB, and Corel, but it would take about 10 times as long, and I'd probably bugger it up about 100 times along the way.

The same reason you don't do Word Processing in Wordpad. When there's a better tool, you use it.

[patrickfindlay]

This still doesn't awnser my question... Whats the main difference between VB.Net standard and professional.

As far as I can see, as I have already said, it's predominantly the server explorer that allows you that extra dinension. But how much of an advantage is it actually having C#, as you do in VB.Net Profesional, etc? Can anyone shed some light on how significant server explorer is. For example, can you deploy remote web apps without it?

[The Hobo]

Originally posted by rjlohan
They charge that much because people will pay it.

You charge less, more people are willing to pay for it...this goes back to that "I hate Capitalism thread."

[rjlohan]

Originally posted by The Hobo


You charge less, more people are willing to pay for it...this goes back to that "I hate Capitalism thread."

The people who pay that much are the only ones who really matter in the business world. I'm sure they are well aware that home-users can find it illegally. So why bother, since you won't buy it anyway? But businesses run the risk of fines or whatever for developing without the appropriate licenses. If they charged less, I don't think more people would pay for it. Not in significant proportions. Say they only charged $300 for it - you'd still say that's alot of money, and it is - to a home user, a student, a kid, whatever. So you'll get it illegally anyway. But even going that low, would require 10x the number of people purchasing the product to make the same amount of money. And I would argue, that with more people buying it, there is a higher risk of illegal copies spreading, and in the end, maybe even less people will buy it.

That's business.

[The Hobo]

Nice points. It's all crazy, business is. We should go back to the days where you just bought everything from a market place and harvested corn on your farm. But I guess that'd put all of us programmers out of a job unless Farmer John needed a program to track all of his cows.

[rjlohan]

Or, you could develop some other skills.

[The Hobo]

Originally posted by rjlohan
Or, you could develop some other skills.

Why stop doing what I love doing because the I don't like the general flow? Ever seen the movie Angus? And btw, thanks for saying I have skills. I always knew you adored me.