> I think it's a shame Windows doesn't ship with devtools out of the box, also. If it came with devtools, would be one less hurdle to getting newbies into progr

> I think it's a shame Windows doesn't ship with devtools out of the box, also. If it came with devtools, would be one less hurdle to getting newbies into programming. Offer good tools at every level - an assembler, a C compiler, c#-level tools, javascript debugger, visual basic. Microsoft's grew from a successful devtool company. It does. Since Vista the framework .net is bundled with Windows and it contains a C# compiler (csc.exe in one or more subfolders of %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework). That's how I started C#: notepad and compiling in command line. But I agree it is not at all user friendly and I'm pretty sure it isn't here to be used by final customer anyway. That being said, bundling WebMatrix or put a download link in the Start Menu could be a nice idea for creating vocations.