What you need for this book
Although you can develop and deploy C# on many platforms, including Mac OS X and Linux, for the best learning experience, you need two pieces of software:
- Microsoft Windows 10
- Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015 with Update 1 (or later)
The best version of Windows to use is Microsoft Windows 10 because you need this version to create Universal Windows Platform apps in Chapter 13, Building Universal Windows Platform Apps Using XAML. Earlier versions of Windows, such as 7 or 8.1, will work for all other chapters. If you don't have a Windows computer, then you can use a virtual machine running Windows in the cloud. Refer to Appendix B, Creating a Virtual Machine for Your Development Environment for instructions.
The best version of Visual Studio to use is Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2015 with Update 1 (or later), which is the version I used while writing this book. In Chapter 15, Taking C# Cross-Platform, I will introduce you to Visual Studio Code, which runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, and can create cross-platform applications for all these OSes.
