Must-have tools for .NET developers

This is a pretty old one, but still, the tools on this list are just great. I still have to look at CodeSmith and Regulator.

The tools on the list are these:

  • NUnit to write unit tests
  • NDoc to create code documentation
  • NAnt to build your solutions
  • CodeSmith to generate code
  • FxCop to police your code
  • Snippet Compiler to compile small bits of code
  • Two different switcher tools, the ASP.NET Version Switcher and the Visual Studio .NET Project Converter
  • Regulator to build regular expressions
  • .NET Reflector to examine assemblies

I would like to add ReSharper (from the JetBrain people) to the list, a quite good refactoring tool.

3 Comments

  • The list neglects one thing: a tool to get around WinXP Pro's idiotic one website limit. Cassini Extended is good but not great and all development on it seems to have been halted. VS.NET 2005 is still a ways away.

  • Yeah, I agree, I don't like that limit at all :(

  • I used a little program called IISAdmin to get around the one website limit. However, I've recently switched back to building apps in virtual folders of the main website, as this shows me that the app will work as a virtual folder on a web host. I don't want to get in the trap where I forgot to make URLs use the application root (~), and then have to revise them later.

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