SharpDevelop - a free and opensource .NET IDE

If you want to develop applications using C# and .NET you have two free choices: Visual Studio Express and SharpDevelop. I'm sure you know about the first so I'll make a short description of SharpDevelop because I know it deserves your attention. At the first glance it looks a lot like Microsoft's Visual Studio: it has a Start Page, Solution Explorer, Toolbox, Clipboard Ring, Class Viewer and Task List. The first think that you will notice is the small download size: 4.1 MB (compared to ~400 MB for VS Express CD). And that's because it's also written in C#. Here are some of SharpDevelop main features:

• Forms designer for C#, VB.NET and Boo
• Integrated debugger
• Code completion for C#, VB.NET and Boo (including Ctrl+Space support)
• XML Editing
• Integrated NUnit support plus code coverage (NCover)
• Refactoring support
• Parser-based code converter (C# to VB.NET / Boo and more)
• Code AutoInsert (Alt+Ins)
• C# to VB.NET converter, as well as VB.NET to C# converter
• Completely written in C#
• Compile C#, VB.NET & Boo code in the IDE out-of-the-box
• Open source, LGPL licensed
• Xml documentation preview
• User interface translated to many languages
• Everything templated: add new project or file types, or even compilers to SharpDevelop

There are some minuses like support for ASP.NET development, web services tools and lack of built-in debugger but even so it's a nice tool for those who want to start learning .NET or want to hack a small application fast. It's another proof that free and open source software can be good. If you are a Linux user you may be interested in MonoDevelop, a port of SharpDevelop for the Mono version of the .NET Framework.