For all of those that want to get started developing .Net applications but do not want to shell out the hundreds of dollars a professional edition of Visual Studio 2003 will cost you, there is a solution. The developers at IC#Code have developed an open source IDE that is actually quite impressive. It has all the features you would expect in a commercial IDE and it is fully extensible through access to the raw source code and the plug-in architecture of the IDE.

#develop pronounced SharpDevelop has the following features:

• A forms designer for C# and VB.Net
• Code completion for C# and VB.Net
• An XML editor integrated within the environment
• “Code Folding” or what is known as regions in the Visual Studio IDE which allow you to separate your code so that you can view only the code that is relevant
• Ability to convert C# to VB.Net and vice versa in the IDE (even Microsoft does not have this feature yet)
• Integrated NUnit Support
• An “assembly advisor” which is an FxCop like program that helps you optimize your assemblies.

To see the full feature list visit their website for a full feature tour.

There is no other open source project like this one for .Net development. It would be great to see if these guys hook up with the team working on open source NTeam project. However that is only a dream of mine at this time.

There is even a book written by the authors of the source code which guide you through their development of this IDE. So not only can you see the code yourself but you can read about why they chose one design path over another which is a great help for those developing world class applications that many users will end up using in their day to day lives.

So why not download this IDE and give .Net a whirl if you have not already done so. If you are new to programming this also might be a good place to start as it is much better to program with an IDE than with notepad and the .Net SDK.