So, I am going to help out with a computer club at my kids middle school. Since a topic was needed to start it all off, I said 'hey! regular expressions are used everywhere, why not start there. Plus, it is very useful.'.
So, I sent JGSoft (the owner of RegexBuddy) an email and explained the situation. How they were kids, we needed a limited version or a free one for a certain time, the kids may purchase it after the class, etc.
What was the response?
"We indeed do not offer a free trial version of RegexBuddy for download on our web site. At RegexBuddy's low price point and with our solid 3-month money-back guarantee, you can buy the full version of RegexBuddy entirely risk-free."
All of the supportive messages for RegexBuddy on SAS-L and other places and the best they can do is some automated response saying all of the kids need to cough up the 40 dollars to use their product. This is a fine way to get a bad reputation IMO.
Now I need to go get a free regex editor to show the kids despite RegexBuddy being the premiere product on the market. I am trying to turn them into kids interested in the product so they can go home and dazzle mom and dad who will then pay the fee.
Ok, off of my soapbox.
1 comment:
Follow-up from the owner:
It was not an automated response. It seems my colleague only replied to the first part of your question (is there an eval version). The answer is that there is a 7-day trial at http://download.jgsoft.com/buddy/SetupRegexBuddyDemo.exe
That's 7 days of actual use. If you teach one day per week, you can use the trial 7 weeks.
> I wanted to find out about classroom discounts or something along
> those lines. Why would the kids kick out $40 if they won't use it
> beyond the class and, if they do, they could turn into customers then?
We do not offer any academic discounts. If you want to install RegexBuddy on classroom computers, you can get a site license for the classroom. We do offer volume discounts if you buy 5 or more licenses.
If you buy one license per computer, RegexBuddy's license allows any number of people to use RegexBuddy on those computers. If you teach the same class to multiple groups, or if you teach it again in the following years, the cost per student will be significantly less than $40 if they all take the course in the same classroom.
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