Even though I’m no developer, I have been known to knock up the occasional script and once upon a time I could even have considered myself to have programming skills…

…Well maybe now I can start to build them up again as Microsoft are offering the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions for free. More details are available on the Microsoft website (check out the FAQ) but basically, for web developers there is Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition; for database developers there’s SQL Server 2005 Express Edition; and for Windows developers there are Visual Studio Express Editions for Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++ and Visual J#. Microsoft is pitching these as “lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn tools for the hobbyist, novice, and student developer” but there is nothing stopping them from being used in a corporate environment (aside from the reduced functionality feature sets).

For anyone (like me) who is new to coding, or returning after a break of several years, MSDN has a coding4fun microsite.