That’s an ambitious title, isn’t it? Well, I hope my recent discovery can live up to it. A while ago I introduced you to #develop, an open source development environment for .NET.

Today I want to point you to Microsoft’s own free development and learning tools for those who want to delve into Windows and Web development. It’s called the Beginner Developer Learning Center. Here, you can download all the tools you need to start developing Windows and Web applications on your desktop, along with tutorials that walk you through the learning process. This is excellent because it gives you a well developed and professionally laid out guide to programming, using the very same tools you would use in a professional situation.

I definitely recommend that you check and make use of the Beginner Developer Learning Center as a resource to get you on your way to becoming a professional programmer, if this is your platform of choice.

• #develop - an Open Source Development Environment for .NET
• Free Microsoft Developer Software and Tools for Students - Full and Professional Editions
• Microsoft going Open Source?
• Learning PHP and MySQL - Good Books to Have
• The Next Step - Collecting my tools