Visual Studio .NET

Definition - What does Visual Studio .NET mean?

Visual Studio .NET is a Microsoft-integrated development environment (IDE) that can be used for developing consoles, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), Windows Forms, Web services and Web applications.

Visual Studio is used to write native code and managed code supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. Visual Studio .NET’s code editor supports IntelliSense and code refactoring, while the Visual Studio .NET integrated debugger supports both source and machine-level debugging. Visual Studio .NET includes other built-in tools, like a form designer, which is useful when building GUI applications; a Web designer that creates dynamic Web pages; a class designer that is used to create custom libraries, and a schema designer for database support.

Techopedia explains Visual Studio .NET

To improve functionality at many levels, plug-ins may be added to provide support for source-control systems, while domain-specific language editors and visual designers are examples of new tool sets that may be added via these plug-ins.

Built-in language services offer support for different well-known languages (like C#, C++, VB, and F#), while language services may be installed separately to support languages, including M, Python, and Ruby, among other supported languages.

There are Visual Studio versions that support individual languages, which are a cost-effective solution for beginners who only need Visual Basic, or advanced users who work on fast processing applications and continually need visual C# or visual C++, but are not interested in low-speed Visual Basic.