Chapter 2. Visual Studio

With ASP.NET, you have several choices for developing web applications. If you're inclined (and don't mind the work), you can code every web page and class by hand using a bare-bones text editor. This approach is appealingly straightforward but tedious and error-prone for anything other than a simple page. Professional ASP.NET developers rarely go this route.

Instead, almost all large-scale ASP.NET websites are built using Visual Studio. This professional development tool includes a rich set of design tools, including legendary debugging tools and IntelliSense, which catches errors and offers suggestions as you type. Visual Studio also supports the robust code-behind model, which separates the .NET code you write from the ...

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