I can recommend getting a a licensed copy of LINQPad. It's a brilliant tool for trying out ideas and prototyping.
I love LINQPad. This tool alone is a huge reason why I have a problem using my Macbook for .NET development.
One of my better purchases was a license for the enhanced features of LINQPad. Saved my ass a number of times with tricky or time-constrained projects.
Re:CoreRT – A .NET Runtime for AOT
by hornetblack on Friday June 08, 2018 @09:22AM
(#17264996)
I find .net for side projects is much nicer because I don't have to deal with a massive codebase, subrepos, waiting ages for compilation, dealing with weird nodeterministic issues collected from years of technical debt.
Also don't have to deal with Winforms.
To add to that, I love that developing either using MS' tools or monodevelop will likely give you a software that works fine under linux and windows (and I guess OSX).
If I need a quick GUI, either Qt or C# will cut it. It mostly depends on the third party libraries.
So with that in mind, C# with the right IDE (VS + Resharper, or Rider) is faster to write than anything else I've ever used and makes working on projects incredibly nice. Add in the solid standard libraries and the ability to make everything from websites to desktop apps in the same language and it's the best choice around, for both work and play.