Chapter 6: Visual Studio .NET Development

Overview

I think you've had enough theory for now. Let's have a little fun and look at the Visual Studio .NET development environment, which is at your disposal for developing your Managed C++ code.

In Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft has tried to keep the development environment the same across all development languages. For the most part, if you learn how to use the Visual Studio .NET IDE in one language, you can use it in the same way for any other language. The one exception to this is Web Forms, which the GUI drag-and-drop tools do not support in the Managed C++ development environment. Chapter 14 goes into this issue in more depth.

The Visual Studio .NET development environment is packed with helpful tools to aid you in the development of your .NET code. You will look at many of these tools as you rebuild the PlayCards.exe application you saw in Chapter 4. You will name the application you build in this chapter DeckPlayer.exe, so that you can differentiate between the two applications.