Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
An SDK normally applies to a platform. Examples include Windows, or a given smart peripheral device, or an external software service. SDKs usually contain documentation, sample source code, libraries, compilers and related low-level development tools, or some combination of those.

So to program for Windows you might use the Windows SDK and a USB weather instrument device's SDK, etc.

I think you are confusing the term SDK with "framework" or "development system" or something.

The Windows SDK contains a lot of .Net junk these days, but it doesn't include an IDE. That's an extra unless you want to do everything in Notepad and run a lot of the small utilities by hand. Then you need some Edition of Visual Studio or a 3rd party IDE.


Hint: Based on your question you might want to know .Net isn't used to build any of the things you mentioned (except Paint.Net). They either use Microsoft's C and C++ compilers with Visual Studio or else a 3rd party suite like Intel's or Borland/Embarcadero's or a GCC toolchain. The majority of successful commercial software products are written in native code C or C++ these days. Java might come in second.

.Net languages are most popular for writing one-off software used in house or built for one customer. .Net may even have surpassed Java here, and of course the previous champion (classic VB) has been orphaned and thus is very marginalized now.
I just noticed though that according to Sony's website Vegas requires the .NET framework to run. How do these companies create GUIs? From scratch? It's so difficult to program an interface in raw C++, why wouldnt they want to use VS or xCode to develop? Why do they do things the hard way?