Building .NET Applications Using Visual C# 2010 Express

During the summer of 2004, Microsoft introduced a new line of IDEs that fall under the designation of Express products (http://msdn.microsoft.com/express). To date, there are various members of the Express family (all of which are completely free and supported and maintained by Microsoft Corporation), including the following:

• Visual Web Developer 2010 Express: A lightweight tool for building dynamic ASP.NET web sites and WCF services
• Visual Basic 2010 Express: A streamlined programming tool ideal for novice programmers who want to learn how to build applications using the user-friendly syntax of Visual Basic
• Visual C# 2010 Express and Visual C++ 2010 Express: Targeted IDEs for students and enthusiasts who wish to learn the fundamentals of computer science in their syntax of choice
• SQL Server Express: An entry-level, database management system geared toward hobbyists, enthusiasts, and student developers

Some Unique Features of Visual C# 2010 Express

By and large, the Express products are slimmed-down versions of their Visual Studio 2010 counterparts and are primarily targeted at .NET hobbyists and students. Like SharpDevelop, Visual C# 2010 Express provides various object browsing tools, a Windows Forms designer, the Add References dialog box, IntelliSense capabilities, and code expansion templates.

However, Visual C# 2010 Express offers a few (important) features currently not available in SharpDevelop, including the following:

• Rich support for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) XAML applications
• IntelliSense for new C# 2010 syntactical constructs including named arguments and optional parameters
• The ability to download additional free templates that support Xbox 360 development, WPF applications with Twitter integration, and much more

Consider Figure 2-8, which illustrates using Visual C# Express to author the XAML markup for a WPF project.

Figure 2-8. Visual C# 2010 Express has integrated support for .NET 4.0 APIs

Because the look and feel of Visual C# 2010 Express is so similar to that of Visual Studio 2010 (and, to some degree, SharpDevelop), I do not provide a walk-through of this particular IDE here. You are free to use this IDE as you work through the book, but do be aware that Visual C# 2010 Express does not support project templates form building ASP.NET web sites. If you wish to also build web applications, be sure to download Visual Web Developer 2010, also available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/express.