Subscribe That’s right: Microsoft is offering the components that make up Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition for free until November 7, 2006. So yeah, you have a bunch of time left to download them. 
There’s six Express products, all of which are being offered for free:
- Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
- Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
- Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
- SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
Microsoft does clarify on their site that the downloads will not be free until November 7 - they will be 100% free forever if you download them before that date. Considering each Express product will cost $49, this free offer will save you $294. Microsoft also claims that registering the Express products will give you thousands of dollars worth of free stuff. Sounds good to me. 
Michael Kreidler responded on 15 Nov 2005 at 8:01 pm #
For those of us who have been meaning to someday take a look at the possibility of doing some programming, is it worth the download, just in case?
Michael
John Lamansky responded on 15 Nov 2005 at 10:05 pm #
Are you asking whether Visual Studio is a good place to start programming?
If so, then I’d say “sure,” though you should start with a language easy-to-use like Visual Basic rather than something like Visual C++. The first programming language I learned was BASIC; some variant thereof should be a good starting point.
Paul responded on 22 Nov 2005 at 10:13 am #
Hey; I think I’ve found out what JSS is.
My theory seems to match all the available data. Let ME know if YOU want to hear my guess. 