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For windows there are: Visual studio professional, Visual studio ultimate, Visual studio premium. (And all those are not free :( ). For linux there is mono.

What IDE and compiler should I get started with, both for Windows and Linux to write C# code?
Posted
Updated 9-Feb-11 6:22am
v2

Visual Studio Express is free, but it lacks what I condsider to be important features things that VS Pro has.

Mono is not an IDE, it's the Linux-compatible version of .Net.

I would abandon all hope of using the latest version of .Net on Linux. Mono simply ain't ready for prime time, and it's always at least 1-1/2 steps behind the current version of .Net.
 
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Nuri Ismail 9-Feb-11 8:57am    
I've tried MonoDevelop 2.4 some time ago and found it far better than the previous versions. But you are right, Mono is at least 1-1/2 steps behind. :)
In addition to the other suggestions to use the Express editions, if you are a student, there are discounted prices available to get the higher editions of Visual Studio, and in fact Professional may actually be free.

(You may need to live in the US or Canada to get this benefit as a student, but worth trying in SA too)
 
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As many others have said the Express versions of the Visual Studio products are free and are a good starting point. They do however not make it easy to do mixed language development. It is possible but unnecessarily complicated.

If that might be of concern then there is SharpDevelop. Although it doesn't have very good support for web development. Here is a comparison of features SharpDevelop v Visual Studio Express[^] and here is where you can download it[^].
 
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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 9-Feb-11 11:11am    
My 5, mainly because you also mentioned SharpDevelop.
--SA
You can start with the free Express versions of Visual Studio:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/[^]
Visual C# 2010 and/or Visual C# 2008 are good free alternatives for beginners but they lack important features (as JSOP already pointed out).
For Linux you can start with MonoDevelop.

:)
 
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