You can develop .NET apps with Visual Studio without purchasing any Visual
Studio stuff. There are two different 'free' versions of Visual Studio:
Express and Community. The former is somewhat dumbed down, the latter is th=
e
full professional version with licensing restrictions. Basically you can us=
e
Community to do anything you want, as long as you are an individual or work
for a small enough company.

~ Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems

> -----Original Message-----
> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf
> Of Neil
> Sent: Friday, November 06, 2015 6:49 PM
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. <piclist@mit.edu>
> Subject: Re: [OT] PC software development tools?
>=20
> Very nicely summarized list.
>=20
> Even though I know Java (as a language) fairly decently (though I will
have to
> re-learn the environment and resource files, etc), I still can't buy into
using it
> for stuff that has any interaction with real-time applications.  I need t=
o
re-
> investigate to see if I can convince myself towards this route again, as
I've
> used it previously for corporate applications, some Android dev, and even
> FIRST robotics.
>=20
> Mid this year, I got back into Android programming, and thought I'd go a
> different direction (rather than Java, Eclipse, etc), and came across B4A
(Basic
> for Android), which is quite nice.  I've only tinkered with it enough to
create a
> basic bluetooth control app, but that went pretty smoothly and it's prett=
y
> well documented.  For $59 it's a no-brainer.
> Though I've put that on hold as the interface for my Maker Faire cookie-
> printer project was developed quicker with Python.
>=20
> I will investigate MonoDevelop.  From bits I've read, I can create full
apps
> with this using the .NET libraries, and not have to purchase any Visual
Studio
> stuff... is this correct?
>=20
> Cheers,
> -Neil.
>=20
>=20
> On 11/6/2015 4:34 PM, Brian Hetrick wrote:
> > Compiled languages targeting both Linux and Windows include C, C#,
> > Java, and Visual Basic (the .NET version, a completely different
> > animal than VB 6 or VBA; do not expect expertise to transfer).
> >
> > On Windows, the primary development environment is Visual Studio.
> > Express and Community editions are free. Visual Studio does not
> > support Java out of the box, but there are add-ins. MonoDevelop is
> > commonly used on Linux, but is also available on Windows. MonoDevelop
> is no cost.
> >
> > The primary development environments for the Java platform are
> > NetBeans, Eclipse, and BlueJ. The primary development environments for
> > the Android platform (Java language, different libraries and
> > ecosystem) are Android Studio, to some extent IntelliJ and Eclipse.
> > Everything so far is no cost. There are commercial solutions for
> > running .NET on Android, as well.
> >
> > Both the Java and .NET platforms supply standardized ways to talk with
> > serial lines. Windows and Linux talk with USB ports very differently;
> > both Java and .NET operating-specific libraries exist and are no cost.
> >
>=20
> --
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--=20
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