Visual C# Express and Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2010 and Visual C# Express 2010 are Integrated Development Environments (IDE) which contain tools that aids you in developing C# and .NET applications. You can create a C# application just by using a notepad or any text editor to type your codes. You can then use the C# compiler available when you install .NET. But that can be a tedious process and errors would be hard to detect. Note that I may use the term Visual Studio to refer to both Visual Studio and Visual C# Express products.

 
 

It is recommended to use an IDE when creating programs. These IDE's are equipped with great features that helps you while developing C# applications. A lot of process that takes time to do can be automated by Visual Studio. One of the features is Intellisense which is guides you as you type your code. Another feature is the adding of break points to your code which allows you to pause the execution of code at a certain part and check the current values of the variables in your program when it is running. Visual Studio can also detect errors in your program as you type and even try to fix minor errors such as capitalization. It includes designer tools for creating graphical user interfaces which generates the long code you may type without using Visual Studio. With these powerful programs, your productivity will increase and development times will decrease thanks to their amazing features.

Visual C# Express

Visual C# Express (VCE) is free version of the Visual Studio family. It is free to download and use and it offers enough features to get you started programming C# and Windows applications. But because its free, you will be missing some great features that the other IDE, Visual Studio, offers. Nevertheless, using Visual C# Express is enough to follow most of the tutorials.
 

Visual Studio

Visual Studio (VS) is a more complete IDE packed with lots of features and tools such as creating diagrams and advanced debugging which are missing in the Visual C# Express Edition. The downside is that it will cost dollars to have a copy of this. Visual Studio is not just used for C#, but for other languages as well such as Visual Basic. It's an all-in-one tool for a Microsoft developer.
The user interface of Visual C# Express and Visual Studio is almost similar, except if you choose a different development setting for Visual Studio. I will use Visual C# Express Edition in most of its tutorials.

Downloading Visual C# Express 2010

 

The Visual C# Express 2010 is available as a free download.
Download Visual C# Express 2010
Click the Visual C# Express link instead. You will be taken to another page where download will automatically start. Chose the location where you want to save the installer. You are now ready to install Visual C# Express 2010.