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Comment by leonheld | Hacker News Reader

And Visual Studio is probably one of the best if not the best IDEs out there.

Maybe it has gotten better. I found it way too much, but then I am writing Python in Notepad++. All I saw was far too many options and an assumption that you were Writing At Enterprise Scale.

If it was a whole decade ago it's hard to state how much the ecosystem has changed since then.

Since 2014 they've released Community Editions of Visual Studio, with a lot more useful features and less restrictive licensing than the old Express editions.

But if you're used to writing Python in Notepad++ I'd skip VS entirely. You can install the dotnet SDK and just keep using Notepad++.

Here's literally everything to write a CLI app in .NET 7:

A csproj file:

  <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    <PropertyGroup>
      <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
      <TargetFramework>net7.0</TargetFramework>
      <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
      <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    </PropertyGroup>
  </Project>

A program.cs file:

  Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

Then open a terminal and navigate to the folder you put the files in and run `dotnet build`. Or just pass in the folder in the argument `dotnet build .\demo\demo.csproj`.

Voila. A CLI executable is built in the .\bin\Debug directory.

Is there a book you would recommend that targets small-scale usage like mine? A CLI, a GUI, or maybe a Windows Service that fires off every so often.

I have noticed someone in a previous job who wrote an application that somehow tied itself to IIS despite not having any web site needed as a front end and found that somewhere between baffling (was there something I just wasn't getting? Is this how things are done now?) and intimidating (wow, that's a lot of infrastructure for something so small).

I'm looking for something which might target the IDE and little tips like the you have helpfully included.

If you're willing to run Windows.

And if you are not, there is Rider which is just as good if not better than Visual Studio.

Used to be, in my opinion. Specially pre-2015. It has become buggy, slow and lacking features ever since. And let’s not get started with its monstrous setup/installer.

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