So you want to be a software developer. You've got a cool idea for a killer app that the world will greet with cries of rapture (and bundles of cash), and you've already planned a house that will rival the Gates manor.

Now all you need is the tools.

Once the computer is taken care of (and, whew! that puppy wasn't cheap!), you need a language or two, and a development environment, and a debugger. Gone are the days when every operating system came with even token amenities for the budding code jockey. Today, commercial products like Microsoft Visual Studio serve the estimated 16 million professional developers worldwide.

What's that? You blew your budget on hardware? You can't afford another $800 for Visual Studio, especially since your saner self is wondering how long this software development urge will last?

Not to worry. There may be 16 million pros in the world, but there are about 18 million amateurs. Eighteen million folks whose ideas could blossom, given the wherewithal, into valuable products for themselves or for commercial consumption.

Vendors of development tools aren't dummies. They want to grow the skills of these amateurs, building themselves a future market and giving the industry a new pool of talent to draw from. There are lots of free open source products for the Linux crowd, but Windows developers had few affordable options — until recently.

Then, said Lenny Louis, product manager, development tools at Microsoft Canada, Microsoft realized that, in the amateur market "there is a huge space where we can enable innovation." And so the Express tools were born.

The Express products are, in Microsoft's words, "expanding the Visual Studio product line to include lightweight, easy-to-use, easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and novices who want to build dynamic Windows applications and Web sites."

Yup — dev tools with training wheels.

The best part is, for now, they're free. Microsoft has promised that they will be accessibly priced for the hobbyist and amateur when the products are released (they're in beta now) sometime in the first half of 2005.

There are six products in the Express line: Visual Basic 2005 Express, Visual C++ 2005 Express, Visual C# 2005 Express, Visual J# 2005 Express, Visual Web Developer 2005 Express, and SQL Server 2005 Express. Each offers full access to the .NET 2.0 Framework, a simplified development environment, IntelliSense, basic debugger, and tutorial documentation: everything the novice or amateur needs to get started. The Web Developer even has a built-in mini Web server, so the user does not have to go through the pain of installing and configuring IIS before building and testing programs, and Visual C# Express throws in a starter kit to help you create a screensaver to display RSS feeds.

Said Louis, "There's a clear need. These tools allow hobbyists to do things developers used to have to spend months learning; they get the benefit of the .NET Framework, the ability to do Web services, security — the features we want to bring to the amateur."

So far, over 400,000 would-be developers have downloaded the Express products.

The downside, of course, is that there's no official support for beta products, though several newsgroups provide plenty of peer assistance. And products developed using the betas may not be distributed commercially (that's a fairly normal stipulation in any beta program).

As well, you do sacrifice features. There's no source code control, for example, no reporting, no class designer and no deployment tool. XML support is limited to XML only (excluding XSLT), there's no mobile device support, and the forms designer is limited. There are other differences too; have a look at a chart comparing Express to the various full versions of Visual Studio.

Microsoft, naturally, has some ulterior motives in creating these products. It knows very well that once people get comfortable with a toolset, they tend to stick with it rather than dabble in another vendor's wares.

"In the long term," said Louis, "it would be great for hobbyists to become great developers and move up in the Visual Studio line. With Express, we bring development to the masses, and let innovation happen at every stage."

"As we design and improve upon Express, we will not take professional developers' needs into consideration. We want to ensure that there is an independent focus on the needs of the non-professional and hobbyists," explained Louis.

If you just want to get your feet wet in development without coughing up for the full product, the Express line is certainly worth a look. Want to try the products out? You'll find them at http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express.