Why Use Third-Party Tools?

Microsoft Visual Studio toolset has always enjoyed broad support from the independent Software Vendor (ISV) community offering of complementary and even competitive tools. Memory checking, overall testing, modeling, and code coverage analysis are some of the areas where complementary tools are available to Visual Studio ”most of them integrated directly into the product. With the release of the .NET platform, this relationship between the ISV development communities and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET went further. In addition, because key fundamental components of the .NET Framework were made open , vendors could potentially develop enhanced sets of tools as well.

In Chapter 5, "Getting Started with Visual Studio .NET: Tools for Developing .NET Applications," you learned the value that Visual Studio .NET, an integrated development environment for development of .NET applications, brings to the table. In this chapter, you will explore the value that third-party tools provide beyond Visual Studio .NET in the overall modeling, development, testing, and deployment of applications.

The objective of this chapter is to provide a quick preview of a sampling of the various third-party tools available for the development of .NET applications.