To make use of this book, you need to be able to compile and execute code written in C#. This means you will require either:
The .NET Framework SDK obtainable from Microsoft's MSDN site (http://msdn.microsoft.com), in the Software Development Kits category. The download page at time of publication could be reached via the following URL:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sample.asp? url=/msdn-files/027/000/976/msdncompositedoc.xml
A version of Visual Studio .NET that incorporates Visual C# .NET. The 2002 edition of the Visual C# .NET IDE is included with the following Microsoft products:
Microsoft Visual C# .NET Standard
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Developer
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Professional
The product homepage is at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/.
There are several .NET implementations for other platforms underway, and support for C# compilation on Linux, UNIX, and Windows is provided by the Mono project (http://www.go-mono.com/). Mono code does not have access to the full Microsoft .NET class library, but follows the same syntactic rules as Microsoft's C#, meaning the lessons in this book should apply in equal measure.