What You Need in Order to Learn C

What You Need in Order to Learn C#

There are two main ways to get the C# language and ASP.NET installed in your machine. Chapter 1, "Getting Started," guides you through both ways. To learn C# all you really need is the C# compiler (and this book, of course). The C# compiler is included as part of the .NET Framework. You can download the .NET Framework directly from Microsoft ”it's a free download. The .NET Framework will also give you all you need to run ASP.NET applications, as long as your machine can run IIS (Windows XP and Windows 2000 Professional are enough. See Chapter 1 for details).

What you don't get with the .NET Framework is a nice C# editor. You would have to use Notepad and work with the command-line compiler if you're going the free route. But people are developing open -source editors for C# that look pretty nice, so you may want to try some of these before spending any money.

If you prefer the Microsoft editor, you need to buy Visual Studio .NET. Visual Studio .NET comes in many flavors: Visual C# Standard Visual Studio .NET Professional, VS.NET Enterprise Developer and VS.NET Enterprise Architect. The Standard version costs close to $100 as of the release of this book, but it is not recommended for serious development. The Professional version costs around $1,000. With the Standard editions you only get support for one .NET language; with Professional you get support for all of them.