In the good ole days I used to buy the MSDN Universal subscription for 1500
bucks and have everything I needed.
But now MSDN seems like a big moving target. I read about how MS is totally
changing MSDN subscriptions and coming up with "smaller versions" or
packages targeting the little guy on up to huge corporate development shops.
Team versions for $15,000 bucks or some similarly outrageous price; but then
I read elsewhere that MS backed down from that aggressive pricing and will
now be offering everything cheaper.
Separately I've seen mention of free of SQL Server 2005 (called "Express" or
something like that for development purposes only) and different parts of
the IDE - but no clear presentation of what my options are.
So, what's current skinny on getting VS.NET 2005, SQL Server 2005, etc -
*without* getting the huge/expensive team version of MSDN (if they're still
offering that or calling it that).
I just want to learn the latest and greatest and I'm on a budget. I also
want to be learning the "real thing" - not WebMatrix or Cassini or other
knock-offs.
Thanks!