SharpDevelop is a free IDE that imitates the user interface of Microsoft Visual Studio. It contains a lot of features similar to Visual Studio such as the project explorer, drag-and-drop design view, resource manager, syntax highlighting... etc. It uses the free distributable .NET Framework for compiling source codes. (So it requires .NET Framework installed first)
SharpDevelop may not posses the same quality and features which may be found at Microsoft Visual Studio but this could also be a good option for starters especially in Visual Basic and C# Programming. Users who are already used to may not feel comfortable because of some features. However, projects in SharpDevelop may still be opened in MS Visual Studio.
SharpDevelop may be downloaded at
icsharpcode.net
Latest Version for Microsoft .NET Framework
.NET Framework Page
