Tip : getting your Win dev tools for free!

General JUCE discussion
1

I thought I might mention it on this forum because it helped me a lot and many of you are probably in the same situation as I am.

A colleague and I created a self-funded startup . Because we had little funds, it was impossible for us to buy some of our development tools like Visual Studio or Intel Compiler, which cost several thousands dollars.

[*]In case you don’t know, Microsoft has a program called Bizspark, which allows you after going to a not-too-hard selection process, to get most microsoft programs for free, for 2 years (Including Visual studio but also office, and even windows !) . It’s obviously limited to independant developpers and/or very small companies. I don’t remember the exact requirements but you probably can find them out here : http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

[*]Intel didn’t offer such a program so we decided to write them directly (you never have anything if you don’t ask :slight_smile: ) , and they have been nice, offering us a couple of 1 year licence of most of their tools . I suppose they hope to get us hooked with their tools, so we will have to purchase them in the future, but it’s still a nice move from them.

Having good tools is really helpful in development so I really hope it can help some of you folks who are trying to bootstrap a business.

Feel free to share if you have other tips like that !

2

Looks cool. I signed up for this. Crossing my fingers and toes i get in.

3

It’s nice to get a free trial of software, just realize that OP is describing is a trial, not “free”.

If you end up with any amount of code that you wish to continue to use, chances are you will be “married” to
those development tools. And if the code doesn’t “bind” you, then the comfort of the IDE might.

If anyone is considering getting free Win dev tools, then there are genuinely free alternatives out there which
offer the advantage of working on other platforms like Lunix, Mac, and in some cases the new tablet thing-a-majigs.
Don’t underestimate the value of being able to develop on other platforms, including simple devices like
Linux appliance boxes. Sure, your current project might only be aimed at Windows for whatever reason, but
being comfortable with a toolset that could let you hit the ground running is valuable whether you are talking
about hobby, work, career, or contract.

Since you’re on the Juce forum, there is a good chance that cross-platform capabilities are a plus for you.

In no particular order for IDEs:

http://www.codecutter.net/tools/quincy/
If after a while Quincy appears too basic for you and you would like more sophisticated features, try CodeBlocks-EP.
http://codeblocks.codecutter.org/
http://netbeans.org/

for compiler and platform basics:


http://www.mingw.org/

http://gcc.gnu.org/

And of course, let’s not forget Juce - but I can’t find my link…

4

Well, yes you’re right but for MS it’s a 2 years trial instead of the 3 months normal trial. Besides, if you look in this forum, code::blocks had caused many headaches to juce developpers :slight_smile:

5

None of the mentioned tools for programming is usable for me, i tried them all, i tried them many times in different versions. I’m not a apple fanboy neither a M$ lover, but one thing i can say is that VisualStudio is a great product. XCode4 is something i just can’t take
[attachment=0]Xcode4.jpg[/attachment]

2 years from M$ is nice, it’s better then apple is doing or any other company i know that does development tools.

Also i’m not going to get stuck with V$ it’s a choice i made a long time ago, it’s just i’ll be able to use a version of VS that’s not from downloaded from TPB.

6

Just to update for those that didn’t try. I got my BizSpark account and VS 2012 all versions Windows 8/2012 server and other useless stuff is there for free. So i recommend it for anyone like me doing opensource.