Part 1: How to create simple programs
Even if you’re not a programmer, you’ve almost certainly heard of Visual Studio. Microsoft’s flagship integrated development environment (IDE) includes everything required to create, test and deploy applications of all types and sizes, in a wide range of programming languages. It can even create cross-platform code to run on other operating systems. No wonder it consistently ranks as one of the world’s most used development environments.
Visual Studio isn’t only for professionals, though. Casual hobbyists and beginners looking to take their first steps in coding can also benefit from Visual Studio features such as smart code-completion, error-checking and debugging features. It’s great for helping less experienced coders produce working projects with a minimum of fuss.
Best of all, most people can use this premium development tool completely free of charge. The Visual Studio Community edition is free to use for individual projects, academic purposes, open-source development and even small business projects with up to five users: only larger organisations working with dedicated development teams will need to invest in Professional or Enterprise licences.
Picking a language
The current version of Visual Studio is Visual Studio 2022 for Windows. It will run on all major editions of Windows 10 or 11, including 64-bit ARM editions, and there’s also a version for macOS: you can download them both from . (Remember to choose the free
