C# 0 The Complete Reference

A First Simple Program

It is now time to look at an actual C# program. We will begin by compiling and running the 

short program shown here:

/*

   This is a simple C# program.

   Call this program Example.cs.

*/

using System;

class Example {

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  // A C# program begins with a call to Main().

  static void Main() {

    Console.WriteLine("A simple C# program.");

  }

}

The primary development environment for C# is Microsoft’s Visual Studio. To compile 

all of the programs in this book, including those that use the new C# 3.0 features, you will 

need to use a version of Visual Studio 2008 (or later) that supports C#. A good choice for 

learning C# 3.0 is Visual C# 2008 Express Edition because (at the time of this writing) it is 

available free of charge from Microsoft. Visual C# 2008 Express Edition contains a full-

featured compiler that supports all of C# 3.0 and is, therefore, able to compile all of the code 

in this book. It also includes Visual Studio, which is Microsoft’s integrated programming 

environment (IDE). Although the Express Edition does not supply all of the tools that a 

commercial developer will want, it is perfect for learning C#. At the time of this writing, 

Visual C# 2008 Express Edition can be downloaded from