Have you ever wanted to be a programmer?
Posted on December 6, 2005
Filed Under Software |
There are plenty of different fields one can enter in the computer technology industry but the one that people think of most is programming. Programming (or development) is of course the process of creating applications (or programs) that do useful stuff like track finances or help write a letter.
Computers process data as binary digits or bits. Bits are essentially ones and zeros and computer programs consist of instructions to the computer that tell it what to do with those ones and zeros. In the olden days, computer programs were written using very ‘low level’ languages that were very difficult to write and debug.
Today, high level computer languages like C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and others, make computer programming less of a dark art and easier to understand. There are undoubtedly things that the prospective programmer needs to know about programming in general and his or her chosen language in particular, but there’s no doubt that modern programming languages are more intuitive than their ancestors.
At the heart of many modern languages is the Integrated Development Environment or the IDE. The IDE is often like a drawing board where the programmer adds things like text boxes and drop down boxes to their programs and writes code that instructs the computer how to use them.
For some years now, Microsoft’s Visual Studio has been one of the top selling programming tools–at least in the Windows world. The problem is, it has never been particularly new user friendly nor has it been inexpensive.
The newest incarnation of Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2005, comes in versions geared towards beginners and students. Microsoft describes the ‘Express’ versions of the Visual Studio 2005 tools as “Lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn tools for the hobbyist, novice, and student developer.”
Visual Studio Express products according to Microsoft “lack the full breadth of features found in higher-end Visual Studio and SQL Server Editions. Each Express Edition includes targeted documentation that will help the beginning programmer quickly learn the concepts required to build more advanced applications. The user interfaces are significantly streamlined to ensure that extraneous features do not interfere with the learning process.”
What’s really interesting about the Visual Studio Express tools is their price – free for a year! After a year the cost of the product is purported to be $49 US, not bad considering earlier full blown versions of Visual Studio ran upwards of $1000 US.
The Visual Studio Express tools can be downloaded at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ along with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (a whole other story). If you’ve wanted to try your hand at programming, these tools are a worthwhile download.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.