Which version of Visual Studio should I purchase?

[dtownsend]

My company is looking into purchasing Visual Studio and I wanted to see which version I need to work effectively with the Revit API.

I am talking Professional Edition vs Standard edition. Also any other recommendations are welcome.

Thanks

[JamesVan]

Check out this link on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_...al_Studio_2005

There are learning resources available from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/2005/default.mspx

You can also check out books on programming languages such as Visual Basic (VB) and C Sharp (C#) on Amazon.com. I was going to buy this one to verify its value and content. If you're brand new to programming, try learning VB before something like C#. I find VB to be a bit more straight forward.

[GuyR]

try learning VB before something like C#.

Without starting a religuous war, disagree. If you have no VB experience then I would go the c# route. Even if you have VB experience, VB.NET is so different you might as well be learning something new.

Here's an interesting description of various languages

My company is looking into purchasing Visual Studio and I wanted to see which version I need to work effectively with the Revit API.

If you're new to programming don't waste your money. VS C# or VB express will do the job just fine. Or use my favorite Sharpdevelop . It supports VB or C# and is opensource. Don't download the 2.1 build just use the 2.0 release.

HTH,

Guy

[dtownsend]

Without starting a religuous war, disagree. If you have no VB experience then I would go the c# route. Even if you have VB experience, VB.NET is so different you might as well be learning something new.

Here's an interesting description of various languages



If you're new to programming don't waste your money. VS C# or VB express will do the job just fine. Or use my favorite Sharpdevelop . It supports VB or C# and is opensource. Don't download the 2.1 build just use the 2.0 release.

HTH,

Guy

I downloaded 2.1 per your recommendation a while back and it kept crashing on me, so I figured I'd get a copy of Visual Studio, but I'll give 2.0 a try and see how it works.

You said it can do VB as well. I need to be able to do VB because some of the APIs I work in are VB supported only, so if I use other languages I get no documentation and it is just a pain that I don't have time to sort out, so I'd per to use VB. I will be learning C# however so I can work with the Revit API soon.

[dtownsend]

I think I'll just get VB Studio professional.

This open source one is cool, but I don't think it has all the tools I need such as publishing tools. Now I can use the click once and put it on our company server and have everyone that needs the tool download it and I can keep it up-to-date with auto updates. Also the database support with Visual Studio is better then with this program.

Thanks for the help.

[GuyR]

I downloaded 2.1 per your recommendation a while back and it kept crashing on me

I didn't realise I'd recommended 2.1 before.Sorry, it's alpha release and includes deployment templates etc.

I need to be able to do VB because some of the APIs I work in are VB supported only, so if I use other languages I get no documentation and it is just a pain that I don't have time to sort out, so I'd per to use VB. I will be learning C# however so I can work with the Revit API soon.

I don't quite understand, if the code is VB.NET I don't see why it would be VB.NET only? You can convert VB.NET to C# and visa versa, this is the nature of .NET. Sharpdevelop can do this, I think the express versions can also. There are also some online converters. There is NO requirement to learn c# to use the revit API. Just convert the samples to see them in VB.NET.

but I don't think it has all the tools I need such as publishing tools.

If I really wanted to use clickonce I'd use c# express. Sharpdevelop 2.1 will support WiX which is a full installer. For API commands not sure clickonce will do it for your initial install. Otherwise fair comment.

Also the database support with Visual Studio is better then with this program.

Fair comment, I just manually hook things up which is pretty easy anyway with ADO.NET. Again, the express versions will do this for you as well.

I do wonder if perhaps you'd be best to try some of the API commands in VB using the free express version before committing to a purchase. The only thing this won't allow you to do is a release build. But I doubt you'll notice the speed difference.

GUy

ps: Dustin, how do you find the Quadro's with Revit? Do you run with OpenGL hardware turned on?

[dtownsend]

Thanks Guy. It's going to be a few months before anything is decided on the purchase of VB Studio, but I just had to get something in for the budget quickly. I'll play round some more with this and try to figure something out. Thanks for your help.

The Quadro does good with Revit. It is choppy in Navisworks, but I think that is because it's going to blow out soon. But in Revit it works great. Yes it has Open GL enabled.

Our new workstations have NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M 512MB OpenGL...mine just hasn't got upgraded yet. They run awesome.