With new "Express" editions of its popular Visual Studio developer tools, Microsoft hopes to overcome three limitations that have made Visual Studio difficult for entry-level and hobbyist programmers: price, size, and complexity. In addition, an Express edition of SQL Server 2005 improves on the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) by offering better management tools along with the same basic feature set as SQL Server 2005.

Express Languages Simplify IDE

Microsoft has long offered inexpensive (about US$100) Standard editions of its popular developer tools, including Visual Basic (VB), Visual C++, and C#, but these have been little more than stripped-down versions of the Professional editions, with just enough features removed to prevent them from cannibalizing sales of the higher-priced Professional and Enterprise editions. Standard edition products were not tailored in any way to help beginning or hobbyist developers, many of whom were overwhelmed by the scope and complexity of the Standard editions. Because the Standard edition tools were so ill-suited for casual developers and were far too large for downloading, the ASP.NET team even went so far as to build its own free tool, ASP.NET Web Matrix, in an effort to make ASP.NET more approachable. (For more information on Web Matrix, see "Web Matrix Makes ASP.NET More Accessible" on page 21 of the Aug. 2002 Update.)

The new line of Express tools includes versions of Microsoft's four supported programming languages—Visual Basic Express, Visual C++ Express, Visual C# Express, and Visual J# Express—each of which allow developers to build Windows and command-line applications. The new Visual Web Developer Express enables ASP.NET 2.0 development with any of the languages. Unlike the full Visual Studio suite, which combines all languages and target platforms (Windows and ASP.NET) into a single integrated development environment (IDE), the Express tools install separately and do not integrate with each other. Separating Web development tools from Windows development tools helps reduce the size of the tools and makes each tool easier for first-time programmers who are likely to be overwhelmed by the number of options presented by the fully integrated suite.

Because the tools are based on Visual Studio 2005 (which is also now available in a beta release), they include the same core editing features as the full Visual Studio suite but they eliminate features not typically needed by hobbyist or part-time programmers, such as "solutions" (which allow developers to create nested projects that contain other projects) and support for the Visual Studio API that allows third-parties to extend the IDE. In addition, the new tools include Help files specifically designed for beginning programmers, such as Getting Started pages with tips on how to perform common tasks and links to community Web sites hosted by Microsoft. The tools also include Starter Kits of sample code to get developers up and running with interesting applications. For example, Visual Basic Express includes a graphical front-end for a database of movies and Visual C# Express includes a kit for a screensaver that displays information from Really Simple Syndication (RSS) news feeds.

SQL Server Express Replaces MSDE

In addition to new versions of its programming languages, Microsoft is making a version of SQL Server 2005 available under the Express banner. SQL Server 2005 Express replaces the MSDE, a free, redistributable database engine based on SQL Server 2000 and designed to help developers building applications that require an embedded database.

Though limited to a database of 4GB or less and running on only a single processor, SQL Server Express offers three major improvements over MSDE. First, it provides the same basic features as SQL Server 2005, including integration of the .NET Framework, which SQL Server 2000 and MSDE lack. Second, it runs in a more locked-down state than MSDE. By default, MSDE runs under the highly privileged Local System account even though the SQL Server documentation strongly recommends against doing so. In addition, changing the account settings for MSDE is a tricky, error-prone process for which Microsoft provides no tools. SQL Server Express changes the default from the Local System account to a much less privileged Local Service account, lessening the damage potential if any vulnerabilities are exploited. Third, although the beta release of SQL Server Express does not include the management tools offered by the full editions of SQL Server, Microsoft will make available a new SQL Server Express Manager with these tools in Aug. 2004.

The Express tools are currently in beta release and are expected to ship in the first half of 2005. Pricing has not been announced but they are expected to cost substantially less than the current Standard editions which retail for approximately US$100.

The beta versions of the Express tools can be downloaded from msdn.microsoft.com/express.