Visual Studio Express Edition is one of the most popular platforms designed for passionate programmers. It can be used to develop desktop apps, Metro style programs and hardware drivers.
The GUI looks very familiar for users with plenty of experience in the programming department, but rookies are likely to experience headaches when opening this application.
Fortunately, there is a very helpful online community that's ready to come to your aid with tips and tricks, but you still must have some basic skills in a programming language.
Visual Studio Express Edition comes with features like multi-monitor support (so you can drag and drop documents from one monitor to another), zoom (in editors or diagrams), navigation (through files, code, variables and methods; more efficient than the common search function), as well as Intellisense (Visual Studio's intuitive feature that simplifies your coding experience).
In addition, you can find C++ and MFC features, multi-targeting support, F# integration, as well as easily create Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) applications without having to code in XAML.
So, you can create individual web applications (that can be deployed by using the One Click Publish feature), and design amazing Silverlight applications for a website.
While Visual Studio Express Edition is running, CPU and memory resources are heavily used, so don't expect your computer to work in normal parameters. It's a complex program, after all.
The bottom line is that if you are a serious user who proudly calls himself a programmer, then Visual Studio Express Edition should be at your fingertips. It's a must-have tool.
What's New in This Release:
A new look and feel:
· From the moment you open the IDE, you'll notice things are different. The entire interface has been redesigned to streamline workflows and provide easy access to the tools you use every day. Tool bars are simplified, tab clutter reduced, and you now have new, fast ways to find code. All of this should make it easier to navigate your application and work the way you like.
Ready for Win8:
· With the release of Windows 8, things have changed dramatically. Visual Studio 2012 delivers new templates, designers, and testing and debugging tools—everything you need to build addictive applications in as little time as possible. At the same time, Blend for Visual Studio gives you a visual toolkit for taking full advantage of the new (and beautiful) Windows 8 interface.
· But maybe the best part of all is what you can do after you've created your application. In the old days, it wasn't always easy to get great products in front of the customers who needed them. Now you hav...