SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Has anyone looked at any of the versions of Visual Studio? They've been out for awhile. I do want to understand and learn some of the new 3.0 and 3.5 .NET technology. And would also like to see the new IDE improvements. But I don't want to install more stuff on my machine. Anyone use it? Any feedback? |
jestermax Member Posts: 1064 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: 06-21-2006 |
Microsoft's beta usually means "we'll break your computer but you don't get to complain about it" so i plan on holding off until it's mature enough. It just looks like they took 2.0 and added in 4-5 new business engines to it and called it a new framework... ------------------ |
kenman Member Posts: 518 From: Janesville WI Registered: 08-31-2006 |
I haven't yet. I'm not going to be keen on installing any of the betas of Visual Studio for a while. The 2005 beta's installed and worked great, but you practacally had to do a complete OS install to install the full product or even the express product. If you want to try the beta, try in a protected development enviornment. Be patient, at some point they'll give it away if you know where to look |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Funny, I had originally typed up a paragraph about how I didn't plan to install it because I didn't want yet ANOTHER thing installed and yet ANOTHER version of .NET. I agree with you guys.  XNA had been the first Microsoft beta I installed.But I removed my statement since I decided to actually install it. The first page came up mentioning issues when uninstalling, so I clicked on the link and it came up with a HUGE list of issues and what to do before installing, how to resolve issues after uninstalling...so much stuff I decided to not install it at all. |
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jestermax Member Posts: 1064 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: 06-21-2006 |
i wanted to like XNA, i really did. but i just can't bring myself to it...  ------------------ |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Why don't you like XNA? I have certainly had my issues (fonts are a pain, event polling, no redistributable, required others to have XNA installed to run something, no access to .NET Forms (or made very difficult), and more) and have voiced them on this site (tried finding them in a search, but could not find my original statements). But there are many 3rd party XNA environments and extensions out there which really add to XNA. I had also been using Beta 1. The final release resolved some of my complaints. And the more recent update resolved even more. Sorry. I like hearing reasons as to why someone either likes or dislikes something. |
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jestermax Member Posts: 1064 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: 06-21-2006 |
i stopped at "no redistributable" and "required others to have XNA installed to run something". i didn't see the point in wasting my time to figure out a new environment to do the same stuff i could already do; I use C++ and Irrlicht/Ogre3D already. I'll admit i haven't given XNA much of a chance, especially since its a "new" thing and it was in beta when i looked at it, but i haven't seen anything special that would tempt me to use it. That being said, i DO like having fancy tools... which i'm not sure what XNA comes with... ------------------ |
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kenman Member Posts: 518 From: Janesville WI Registered: 08-31-2006 |
Sometimes using the beta version will get you an email on how to get the free full version. Whether it be by attending some sort of seminar or jumping though other hoops. Sometimes I download Beta's just to get on the mailing list. |
bwoogie Member Posts: 380 From: kansas usa Registered: 03-12-2005 |
i thought about it... but i didn't download it. ------------------ |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
quote: XNA does not come with much. Part of my excitement for XNA are the 3rd Party tools and APIs out there. From physics, to particle effects, to full development systems. Here are a few interesting XNA related resources: There is another one, but I can't seem to find it. It has a really neat video of you walking through a 3D castle but the castle is all hand-drawn in pencil. The hand-drawn technique was really unique for a 3D map. |
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jestermax Member Posts: 1064 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: 06-21-2006 |
was it a 3d map? or was it A) the texture images, or B) a shader similar to cel shading? ------------------ |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Unfortunatley I do not know the terminology, so I don't really know the answer. I will try and find the video again. |