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Product: Visual Studio .NET Integrated Developer Environment (IDE)
Company: Microsoft
Website: http://www.microsoft.com
Estimated Street Price: See Pricing
Review By: Roy J. Salisbury

Final Results And Overall Mark  

Table Of Contents
1: Introduction
2: Setup & Installation
3: Pricing & System Requirements
4: Customizable Interface

5: Code Editor & Designer
6: Help System & Debugging
7: Additional Tools
8: Conclusion

Well we have reached the end of the review. Here are my final comments, notes and grades for Visual Studio .NET Integrated Developer Environment (IDE).

 

Final Comments

How It Grades

Installation: 90%
Interface: 93%
Ease of Use:
93%
Performance: 83%
Features: 89%
Stability: 91%
Price: 78%
Debugging: 86%
Online Help System: 96%
Extensibility: 87%
Overall: 88.6%

While I have given a few parts of the Visual Studio .NET package very low marks, they are mainly the parts that are “add-on’s” to the IDE or are simple not very important. I would say that 90% of the Visual Studio .NET IDE is an excellent product that deserves close attention. I have only had the IDE crash on my twice since using it, and I’m pretty sure one of them it was my fault. I once had over 90 files open in the IDE at once, and didn’t really notice any performance hit. But when I did a search and replace on those files, the IDE kind of got “lost” and I had to restart the IDE.

With the development community growing more and more from non-professional developers the Visual Studio .NET IDE provides a great starting place for them. And while it’s easy of use allows the beginning programmer to easily understand the normally complex nature of programming and debugging, the rich set of features gives the seasoned developer an excellent development environment.  With the increasing level of technology and demand for applications that support it, Visual Studio .NET proves that the development environment that you use does not have to increase in complexity to provide the necessary tools to do the job. Everyone has their own idea’s of what should be included in a development environment, and no one will ever be 100% satisfied, but the Visual Studio .NET IDE a lot closer than most.

Specs & Package
Overall Score 88.6%
Version Reviewed Visual Studio .NET
Release Date Out Now
In The Box? CDs, Manual
The Good Points
Highly customizable interface
Integrated Debugger
Comprehensive Online Help
 
The Bad Points
Extra "add-in" tools are outdated
Some included software is crippled/demo
Needs a lot of disk space
Price
 
Reviewers Specs

Dual Pentium III 1.0 GHz
Windows XP Professional
1 GB RAM
Dual 19" Monitors (1600x1200, 1280x1024)
180GB of combined HD space

PC Required

See System Requirements

 

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