MonoDevelop
MonoDevelop is an open-souce project that is part of the much-hyped Mono Project, which brings the Common Language Runtime (CLR) framework to other operating systems, including Linux and Unix. MonoDevelop itself is a standalone development tool and IDE that can be used to create .NET applications and is a port of SharpDevelop to the gtk# platform, which is a .NET language binding for the gtk+ toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries. This project is listed as in the -early stages of development" and unfortunately has some problems in the areas of both user interface and language support.

Designed from the viewpoint of bringing an open source .NET development tool to multiple platforms, MonoDevelop has tried to do too much too fast and the user interface itself only provides basic functionality. You would be hard-pressed to create a production-quality application using this toolset but it may suffice if you have only simple Web applications to develop or if you want to develop on one the supported platforms and don't have an alternative.

The documentation and support for the product is poor, with a small but dedicated community providing the majority of support rhough newsgroups and forums there is some support for the tool among the open source development community looking to make the switch to .NET or supplement their existing application capabilities.

As a contendor to Visual Studio.NET, MonoDevelop does not even come close â€" with a concentrated effort by the project's contributors they could increase the features and functionality to bring the tool up to scratch, but it will be months or years before it can stand on its own against Visual Studio.NET.

Xdevelop
Xdevelop is a cross-platform tool that can be used to develop applications using C#, VB.NET and J#, as well as Java applications. The XDevelop user interface, shown below in Figure 3 is easy to use and understand and if you are coming to the .NET platform from a Java background, there is definitely a bonus in using XDevelop, as you can use the same tool for both .NET and Java coding.

Figure 3: XDevelop

For C# and VB.NET development, the IDE does not provide as many features as other tools, including Visual Studio.NET and SharpDevelop, but does include a number of -productivity" features that you can use to speed code development, including code completion and refactoring, as well as support for Visual Studio.NET solution and project files.

Currently in -Preview" stage, XDevelop will be a strong contender for those developer shops looking to replace Visual Studio.NET with a mid-weight IDE that is not too difficult to learn or for Java developers looking to make the switch to .NET.

Visual SlickEdit
Visual SlickEdit is best known as a text editor, but over the past few versions has grown into it's own as a fully featured development environment, supporting over 20 programming and scripting languages, including VB.NET and C#. The user interface, shown in Figure 4 is well-suited for .NET development and includes a CLR debugger built into the Visual SlickEdit debugger window, meaning you can edit, build, run and debug .NET applications without leaving the UI.

Figure 4: Visual SlickEdit

Visual SlickEdit is a mature, stable environment that has been through 9 versions and this maturity shows in the product, with features like background searching, code completion and highlighting and a powerful macro language to automate common tasks.

As an -all-around" editor and development environment, SlickEdit is hard to beat. Most die-hard SlickEdit users will tell you that once you get the hang of some of the advanced features and functionality you won't want to use anything else.

Macromedia Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is probably best known among Web and graphic designers, but through acquisitions and enhancements the product has grown to become more of an application development platform, including support for creating ASP.NET applications.

The Dreamweaver user interface, shown in Figure 5, has been developed with the Web developer in mind and makes it easy to create the HTML pages, templates and Web forms and beats Visual Studio.NET hands down for creating feature-rich Web forms.

Figure 5: Dreamweaver

In addition to general Web development and design features, Dreamweaver also supports ASP.NET data set, list and grid objects, as well as custom tags and dynamic form objects. Another area where Dreamweaver beats Visual Studio is with built-in -server behaviours" which can be used to quickly create Web forms that insert or update database records, navigate through recordsets, etc.

The code view is also a boon to development with flexible highlighting for not only ASP.NET but also any other elements in the page and most developers will be very comfortable writing and editing code. The cost of equipping a team of developers with Dreamweaver may be prohibitive, but if you want to create feature-rich Web applications with an emphasis on the look and feel of the application, Dreamweaver may be the way to go.