Before starting your first C# application, you should take a look at the C# editors available for creating applications. Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is currently the best tool for developing C# applications. Installing VS .NET also installs the C# command-line compiler that comes with the .NET Software Development Kit (SDK).
If you don’t have VS.NET, you can install the C# command-line compiler by installing the .NET SDK. After installing the .NET SDK, you can use any C# editor.
Visual Studio 2005 Express is a lighter version of Visual Studio that is free to download. You can also download Visual C# 2005 Express version for free. To download these Express versions, go to MSDN website, select Downloads tab, and then select Visual Studio related link.
If you can’t get one of these editors, you can use a text editor, such as Notepad or Word pad. In the next sections, you’ll learn how to write a windows forms application in notepad, and then you’ll look at the VS .NET IDE.