Why bother using the full version of Visual Studio?

Question

I am trying to understand some ideas surrounding visual studio, sql server and hosting.

I understand the only difference between visual studio express and ultimate (or some other full version) is that the sql server you use is limited in the express version. Therefore, if you wanted to create the next facebook or linkedin, express would never work (assuming you were going to make this with ASP.NET) because it would never be able to scale to millions of users taking up terabytes of data.

But I understand that the sql server you use in development isnt the same as the sql server that is used during hosting because hosting companies dont allow your licence to operate on their server. So if you end up paying for sql server through the hosting company, which obviously runs the full version of sql server and can therefore scale, why would you ever need a full blown sql lisence during development? Doesnt it make more sense to develop everything on visual studio express (because its free) and then just scale your sql requirements through the hosting company?

Apologies for what Im sure is a dumb question but I'd just like to understand.

Solution

There is actually nothing stopping you to develop the next facebook using Notepad++ or Emacs, as the .NET compilers are part of the platform and the APIs are well documented. So why don't people use Notepad++? It's because productivity is not as good when developing using generic tools.

MS makes VS Express available for free but some features are limited, e.g. the ability to use different types of solutions. There may of course also be open source tools for .NET development (but I've never used one myself) which may provide you with what you need.

But companies who develop software professionally wants more than just a code editor. They want source control, automated testing, code metrics, archiecture diagrams, etc. Those are the reasons companies buy Visual Studio Professional and Ultimate.

I'm also pretty sure that you are not allowed to put something in production for end users using a SQL Server version you get with VS, regardless of the version. So any limitations to SQL in VS Express is really not of practical interest.

That said, the Express versions are perfect for users who either don't do full time professional development or who likes to do development in their spare time (e.g. students). I think Express was created to give these users the advantage of a real develop tool optimized for .NET development, but limiting the features to make it less attractive to professional organizations.

So I think you should just continue using Express until you require the features of the full versions. See http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/products/compare for more details.

Comments

[Cybernetic]

Excellent answer. Thank you for spending the time to write a clear explanation. So are there any legal reasons a consultant couldn't use VS Express to develop basic web applications for their clients? Since the Database will scale according to the license provided by the host (or because its free mySql) I cant see this being a problem. I doubt the majority of custom web apps developed for small organizations require any of the advanced features available in VS Full....unless of course there are legal constraints on making money off of developed software made using VS express?

[Mattias Lindberg]

Very many VS licenses are sold through MSDN subscriptions, and products which you get through MSDN (e.g. SQL Server) cannot be used in production as it is only for development. If you use a free database then there is no problems and you can put whatever you want in Products. I don't know of any restrictions of using VS Express to create production code, that sort of restriction would be sort of silly.