MSFT sparking dreams with free dev tools
Interesting Microsoft move pre-reported by TechCrunch this morning: Bill Gates will announce (or has announced) that (verified) students will have access to MSFT development tools for free. In a program called Dreamspark, students can get the entire Visual Studio line, Expression, Windows Server, and Game Studio. It’s a smart way to compete with open source, build the community of developers who work with and prefer Windows, and build brand loyalty at a formative phase of someone’s career.
Channel 8 did an interview with Bill Gates about this initiative which turned into talking about software. Despite outsourcing and the commoditization of certain development skills, Gates is still quite bullish on the importance of programming:
[People can use MSFT dev tools to] build a career around or build fun software for themselves.
The skill of design, skill of knowing what good code looks like … will be around for the next couple decades.
There’s nothing more fun than thinking about software . . . software for the poor (there’s a lot more work that needs to be done), software to make jobs more interesting, software to help peofle design things in new ways … if you think about the sciences today they’re really driven by software … biology has so much information that it’s really software people who are gong to help find patterns and organize that information.