Even though an IDE such as Visual Studio .NET isn't required for development, it provides a number of productivity-enhancement features for multiple developers to work together on a business problem and rapidly develop applications.
Unlike Visual Studio 6.0, Visual Studio .NET provides a single environment for developing different kinds of solutions ”Windows applications, Web applications, Web services, and even Smart Device applications.
Visual Studio .NET supports development in multiple programming languages. Four languages are supported inherently by Microsoft: Visual C#, Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, and Visual J# .NET. Various third parties have also provided plug-ins and add-ons to Visual Studio .NET to support other programming languages such as Perl.
Applications developed using Visual Studio .NET utilize a common and comprehensive framework provided by the .NET Framework. For instance, this implies that there is one programming model for developing Windows applications, which is Windows Forms instead of MFC, Visual Basic, and the like.
Visual Studio .NET 2003 includes integrated support for Smart Device “based application development, using .NET Compact Framework.
For concurrent team development, Visual Studio .NET includes integration with source code management tools such as Visual SourceSafe so that developers can develop applications together.
