C# Programming
 

I've heard a lot of good things about C# and although I immensely dislike the Windows OS I am interested in experimenting with it. From what I understand, programming with C# requires one of the many versions/editions MS Visual Studio. Would you recommend Visual Studio Express, or is it too limited? Would you recommend the 2005 or 2008 beta version? Which do you use? Thanks for the input.

Re: C# Programming
 

Visual Studio is not limited, at least not in my experience. It imposes some special structure on your code, but nothing that you cannot edit manually. It's stupid, but you can completely ignore the graphical designer if you don't like it.

Re: C# Programming
 

OpenLoop: Are you referring to Visual Studio Express? Are there other options? Thanks.

Re: C# Programming
 

Actually, I was referring to the full version. I get it from my Univ for free. Not sure about the express, but since it's free I wouldn't expect mutch...

Re: C# Programming
 

I dropped 2003 Pro for 2005 Standard, does what I need it to do...

Express is limited, especially if you are interested in web services. Although, it is free.

SharpDevelop is free also, haven't used it in a while to really say yay or nay on it, but at the time... it did what I needed it to do also.

Re: C# Programming
 

Yeah, SharpDevelop is what I started to use, but then said screw it cause I got my hands on VS2005. As IR said, they do what I need them to do. There's a lot of features I don't use or even know about.

Re: C# Programming
 

You don't have to use VC#, but there's few alternatives. I use VS because I get it handily, so I haven't tried the express versions much. It will be usable, certainly, but will likely be missing features related to project deployment and team dynamics, and possibly some other stuff too.

Re: C# Programming
 

Are you referring to the IDE? I think the compiler is the same..... You can write your program in notepad and compile is from the command line.

Re: C# Programming
 

Before I didn't want to use Visual Studio Professional as a pirated copy, so I've written some apps in gVim for Windows, I just used the compiler and API which are free, but now I returned to VC# 2005 Express and I am very happy with it. VC# 2005 Express is very powerful. At least you don't need an actual IDE, but for simplicities sake you should use because you can work faster. And now System.Windows.Forms and System.Drawing are implemented in Mono, so you can use your Windows application in Unix-based systems without recompiling it, just make sure of your mono version. And don't use P/Invokes. And you can test your application if it works in mono using Mono Migration Analyzer http://www.mono-project.com/MoMA .

Re: C# Programming
 

You dont have to use VS, Essentially you code in word pad, all you need is a compiler. VS is a complex txt editor with the cool syntax highlighting effects built in. Sharp develop is a good free app for coding..