I’ve been getting a lot more into — I don’t know how to put it — doing things? So I’ve started spending more time learning stuff, making things — mostly web pages and crap. But it’s toward building more interesting web applications, and I’m looking at and working through a lot of different stuff — CSS, javascript & DOM, ruby/rails, java & jsp (that’s for work, really) and even some computational graphics type stuff.
So to sort of glaze over my experiences, I spend a lot of time reading words written by people who are totally in the mix, right? I mean I basically at this point am the creepy paparazzi skulking in the alley out side of Web 2.0, Inc. picking up every little scrap those fat-cat bastards throw away.
So it’s kind of funny to eavesdrop on another group’s conversation and hear something that is so outside of the above referenced mix that the people having the conversation seem to be well, mentally impaired.
Overheard on the MSDN forums:
(JuliasW) - I have been really impressed with Managed code (C#) and Visual Studio over the last couple of years. But I am now pretty impressed by Ruby (and the RAILS Web fraemwork) Unfortunately the best Editors and few IDEs for Ruby seem to be weak Java implementations, not a patch on the Visual Studio experience.
I know Ruby is a very dynamic language, not so well suited to Visual Studio, but a Ruby Plug-In for Visula Studio, with robust intellisense, auto formatting, and common (RAILS) generator macros would be really great. It would also show that Microsoft is open and prepared to support ‘best of breed’ third party languages.
(BRCEWANE) Doesn’t the Ruby on Rails contradict the latest SDK EULA:“Eligible Products”
- have as their primary purpose the creation of applications or components that natively run on one or more Microsoft Platforms“Microsoft Platforms”
means any current and future Microsoft operating system products, Microsoft run-time technologies (such as the .NET Framework), and Microsoft application platforms (such as Microsoft® Office or Microsoft® Dynamics) that we offer during the Term.
(Mark Colburn) We cannot comment on licensing isues such as this in the forum. If you have specific licensing questions, please consult your legal department. For questions specific to the VSIP license agreement you can also contact the Microsoft VSIP account management team.Mark Colburn, Lead Program Manager, Visual Studio Ecosystem
(Huw Collingbourne) We have just released the first public beta of Steel - our Ruby IDE for Visual Studio 2005. Currently it supports code colouring and collapsing, an integrated docked console, commenting/uncommenting, syntax error location and a few other goodies. We shall be releasing updates approximately monthly from now on. The next version will include basic debugging. You can keep track of this project at http://www.sapphiresteel.com(illNote: SapphireSteel lists at $249, is currently $199 but in fairness comes with a free personal edition)
(JuliasW) - Wow this is so cool. Just what I wanted. Ruby on Rails with a decent IDE.Christmas has come very early !!
Let’s recap, shall we?
JuliasW, who is interested in developing with a free, opensource framework wants to know if there’s a way to do it on his favorite IDE — nothing wrong there of course, we all have our preferences.
So his a colleague on the MSDN forums tells him that using a technology that MS doesn’t support natively might violate the EULA — a claim that a Microsoft employee specifically NOT dispell (and tells the original poster to his own legal department, wtf?). After that, someone else offers to sell him a plugin for the IDE he uses which also costs money — and this is to work on something that the vendor of the platform he develops and (presumably) deploys on will not tell him whether or not his work will violate some EULA.
And by the way, if what he wants to build has a component where people have an account and log in? Microsoft may come to him after it’s successful and he will learn the joys of client access licensing, a system so Stygian it could only have originated in Redmond.
Now, I have nothing against charging for software… but it’s worth pointing out I think that Rails developers seem to use mostly either free tools like RadRails or Eclipse or fairly cheap (but very good) editors like TextMate (well TextMate is a mac app, but hey… Macs run Windows now…).
When you compound this with the fact that most of the Rails stuff is free,including the server software, etc (again, nothing against people who sell software, but Microsoft is a nightmare to do business with in my estimation) and it just begs the question- are these guys really not willing to develop with tools that they don’t have to a) pay a ton of money for and b) agree to EULAs that call in question what they’re allowed to do?
It’s crazy, it’s crazy.
