If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with programming, or are curious about how apps and applications are designed and developed, you can download a free copy of Microsoft Visual Studio. Known as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), it supports the C# and Visual Basic programming languages, as well as app development on all mobile platforms; not just Windows but Android and iOS as well. It also will debug your program, and compile it into a running app when complete.

If you are interested, you can download it from this page – it’s free for students – and I always encourage people to get involved with this aspect of technology. We need more programmers and software developers, it’s an exceptionally valuable skill and having some experience will always be viewed favorably by employers, but it’s also just fun to do. Seriously.

If you’d like a good online reference, the Channel 9 series of videos from the Microsoft Developers Network are absolutely outstanding. As far as books are concerned I always recommend the Dummies series for programing. They’re very good, well paced, and don’t overwhelm you like textbooks always seem to do, and they even have good content online.

Don’t be afraid of giving programming a try. It may seem intimidating, but the concepts and methods start to become intuitive, and like mathematics or music, it’s just another language with syntax and structure, and unlike those others this one is based on actual language. It’s very rewarding when a program you’ve written runs, and after your first, simple “Hello World” program works you’ll see what I mean.