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Tool

Meaning in Life

URL

FxCop

This is a must-have for any .NET developer 

http://www.gotdotnet.

interested in .NET best practices. FxCop 

com/team/fxcop

will test any .NET assembly against the 

official Microsoft .NET best-practice 

coding guidelines.

Lutz Roeder’s Reflector

This advanced .NET decompiler/object 

http://www.aisto.com/

browser allows you to view the .NET

roeder/dotnet

implementation of any .NET type using 

a variety of languages.

NAnt

NAnt is the .NET equivalent of Ant, the 

http://sourceforge.

popular Java automated build tool. NAnt 

net/projects/nant

allows you to define and execute detailed 

build scripts using an XML-based syntax.

NDoc

NDoc is a tool that will generate code 

http://sourceforge.

documentation files for C# code (or a 

net/projects/ndoc

compiled .NET assembly) in a variety 

of popular formats (MSDN’s *.chm, XML, 

HTML, Javadoc, and LaTeX).

NUnit

NUnit is the .NET equivalent of the 

http://www.nunit.org

Java-centric JUnit unit testing tool. Using 

NUnit, you are able to facilitate the testing 

of your managed code.

Summary

So as you can see, you have many new toys at your disposal! The point of this chapter was to provide

you with a tour of the major programming tools a C# programmer may leverage during the develop-

ment process. You began the journey by learning how to generate .NET assemblies using nothing

other than the free C# compiler and Notepad. Next, you were introduced to the TextPad and

Notepad++ applications and walked through the process of using these tools to edit and compile

*.cs code files.

You also examined three feature-rich IDEs, starting with the open source SharpDevelop, fol-

lowed by Microsoft’s Visual C# 2008 Express and Visual Studio 2008 Professional. While this chapter

only scratched the surface of each tool’s functionality, you should be in a good position to explore

your chosen IDE at your leisure (and recall, you’ll see additional features of Visual Studio 2008 as

you progress through the book). The chapter wrapped up by examining various open source .NET

development tools that extend the functionality of your IDE of choice.

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