Datasheet

Part I: The C# Language
10
VS includes designers for Windows Forms and Web Forms applications, enabling simple
drag - and - drop design of UI elements.
Many types of C# projects may be created with “ boilerplate ” code already in place. Instead of
starting from scratch, you will often find that various code files are started for you, reducing the
amount of time spent getting started on a project. This is especially true of the new “ Starter Kit ”
project type, which enables you to develop from a fully functional application base. Some starter
kits are included with the VS installation, and you can find plenty more online to play with.
VS includes several wizards that automate common tasks, many of which can add appropriate
code to existing files without you having to worry about (or even, in some cases, remember) the
correct syntax.
VS contains many powerful tools for visualizing and navigating through elements of your
projects, whether they are C# source code files or other resources such as bitmap images or
sound files.
As well as simply writing applications in VS, you can create deployment projects, making it easy
to supply code to clients and for them to install it without much trouble.
VS enables you to use advanced debugging techniques when developing projects, such as the
capability to step through code one instruction at a time while keeping an eye on the state of
your application.
There is much more than this, but you get the idea!
Visual Studio 2008 Express Products
In addition to Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft also supplies several simpler development tools known as
Visual Studio 2008 Express Products. These are freely available at
http://lab.msdn.microsoft
.com/express
.
Two of these products, Visual C# 2008 Express Edition and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition,
together enable you to create almost any C# application you might need. They both function as
slimmed - down versions of VS and retain the same look and feel. While they offer many of the same
features as VS, some notable feature are absent, although not so many that they would prevent you from
using these tools to work through this book.
In this book you ’ ll use VCE to develop C# applications wherever possible, and only use VS where it is
necessary for certain functionality.
Solutions
When you use VS or VCE to develop applications, you do so by creating solutions . A solution, in VS and
VCE terms, is more than just an application. Solutions contain projects , which might be Windows Forms
projects, Web Form projects, and so on. Because solutions can contain multiple projects, you can group
together related code in one place, even if it will eventually compile to multiple assemblies in various
places on your hard disk.
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