Assumptions This Book Makes

To program in C#, you must have installed one of the many editions of Visual Studio .NET on your system (Standard, Professional, Enterprise, or Architect), or have downloaded and installed the .NET Framework SDK. Visual Studio provides a complete interactive developer environment that simplifies many of the tasks of C# programming, especially the development of Windows clients, server-side web applications and web services. In addition, Visual Studio provides excellent support for the debugging and project management of applications.

However, with the .NET Framework SDK installed on your system you can write C# programs using an editor such as emacs, SharpDevelop, or Microsoft Notepad, and compile, debug, and execute them using the command-line utilities described in Chapter 23.

To download the .NET Framework SDK (currently a 106 MB file), see http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/.