To be honest, I’d prefer that we used Java more than we do for our automation work (simply because we have standardised on Java for high-end analysis software, and we have to port an maintain APIs in both C# and Java, which creates added work). However, much of our automation conrol software is written in C#. There are two major reasons for that:

o A lot of the hardware we control is driven not through serial ports, but through more advanced interfaces. The low-level APIs for the more funky comms simply don’t exist in Java (e.g. CameraLink) and even support for interfaces like USB is pretty new and untested in Java.

o Some of the hardware components we use are quite exotic, even if control does go through serial ports e.g. piezoelectric actuators. Given the timelines and budgets we work to, it doesn’t make sense for us to write SDKs from scratch for these kind of pretty complex components. Instead, we integrate manufacturer SDKs for the high-tech stuff.

A minor reason for using C# is that .NET has pretty good serial comms support out-of-the-box. No third-party libraries required.

Which brings me to your question: why Visual Studio and not SharpDevelop for C# work? The truth is: I don’t have a good answer!! I haven’t looked at SharpDevelop. My assumptions (which may be totally incorrect) were that: a) while MS does a lot of things badly, it does dev tools really well; and b) that MS tools would have the best support for integrating legacy technology e.g ActiveX.

Also, it’s worth noting that there are free (as in beer) versions of Visual Studio available in language specific editions e.g Visual C# Express. These are richly featured and useful versions.

So, my bottom line answer to your question is: “because I think Visual Studio is a good IDE, and I haven’t looked at SharpDevelop”…

If you do some extensive work with SharpDevelop, please share your experiences…

I had naturally assumed to use SharpDevelop for that (free and OS) but yours is the second source of data where I have seen people selecting Visual Studio. Previously I thought it was just because the person I was speaking to/reading from had not investigated beyond Visual Studio because they just hadn’t bothered with FOSS. What is the reason you use Visual Studio?

Not sure how much development of Mac OS X specific applications has happened historically in the Enterprise. However, one really interesting future area, of course, is the development of internal business applications for iPhone.

That isn’t free though. I’m not sure of the precise details - Apple isn’t very clear on this - but I think being part of the Enterprise iPhone developer program (i.e. for developing in-house apps) *might* cost $299 per year per developer.

That’s a price tag that would impact adoption in terms of numbers of developers inside companies that develop iPhone apps. If it was $299 per year per company, that’s a different matter. As I say, I’m not sure what the precise terms are. The smart thing to do would be $299 per company (or even free) - that could drive significant sales of Apple hardware.

If you’re a large company that has invested in new Apple hardware, and are then planning some specific internal software, you’d want native code for your machines.

Only need Xcode to develop for Mac…