Re: Cost of RDP

It depends on the definition of the word "need". You can get a Craftsman drill for $50, or a Makita for $179. It depends on what you think you need. I'm an occasional DIYer, so I use Ryobi tools. If I actually did real work on a regular basis, I'd probably upgrade to the Makita.

Similarly, you can get RPG Next Gen or RDP. If your part-time gig only nets you $1000 or so a year, I'd say you're more of a hobbiest than even a DIYer. At that point RPG Next Gen is the better tool.

Comparisons to Microsoft products are apples to avocados. Microsoft uses their development tools as loss leaders and always has; they can afford to do so. Eventually they make up the money in Windows licenses or certification or whatever.

And don't blame the price tag anyway. IBM gave away WDSC and there was still almost zero support from the midrange community. If loss leaders don't eventually bring in money down the road, they become untenable.

Joe

But as a weekend DIYer, I want/need the professional tool. I would
have to work my part-time gig for 6+ months sometimes just to buy the
initial tool. The cost is just too high for my budget (and many
others).

The base version of Visual Studio is $550 with no maintenance and
comes with many more tools and utilities. But then they started a new
program called WebSpark for people to get Microsofts dev tools. Its
free initially.

--
Mike Wills
http://mikewills.me

Sent from my mobile

On Jul 3, 2011, at 11:51 PM, Joe Pluta<joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Let's say just for a giggle that RDP saves you an hour a week (and I
guarantee it saves me a lot more than that) over WDSC. That's 50 hours
a year, give or take. So a quick divide tells me you consider your time
to be worth about four bucks an hour. Yeah, I know that might be a bit
over-simplified, but hopefully you get my drift. $800 just ain't that
much as a one-time cost. It's the same reason carpenters and mechanics
spend way more for their tools than weekend do-it-yourselfers.

Joe

On Fri, 01 Jul 2011 18:03:40 +0100, Brian Parkins wrote:

A number of folk appear to be “stuck” on WDSc v7, or forced back on to
WDSc when their 60-day trial of RDP ends. Purely out of personal
curiosity, what would the price of RDP have to be to encourage you to
purchase it yourself?

I'd say $200/year would be about my limit, with $200 purchase price with
the first year's upgrades/patches included.

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