C# Documentation Resource(s)

Question

I've recently decided to start programming in C# without Visual Studio. This means I'll be compiling all of my code with "csc.exe" and another editor. I'm not an 'expert' with C# by any stretch of imagination and with no IntelliSense option I have no way of seeing of knowing what I am/can work with.

I've been looking for something akin to the Java Docs... something laid out fairly cleanly. Simple to navigate, information you need and nothing you don't. I'm aware that MSDN has documentation for most of their items, however I've always found their documentation to be lacking and the C# documentation is no exception to that.

Does anyone know any website/application that will let me see the Fields/Methods/Whatever inside C# classes and namespaces?

The current version of C# I'm working with is the 3.5 release but I'm sure even something for 2.0 will do nicely. Something similar to JavaDocs or how IntelliSense works is preferred.

Update: Just thought I'd shed some light on why I don't wish to use Visual Studio. I think its far too slow for an IDE and Microsoft has added a lot of useless or messy 'features' into it. One in particular is the unneeded Solution and project files. Further more, I believe that things like IntelliSense are creating a dependency between Visual Studio. I believe that to be a competent programmer, you're going to have to memorize what you're working with. Visual Studio says "Hey! Don't worry about memorizing - I'll do that for you. Just write code." Which is all fine and dandy in some cases but I think programming involves more than just writing code that works.

Answer 1

Red gate's .NET Reflector

Answer 2

there is always the MSDN web site, that is what I use when I have forsaken Visual Studio.

Answer 3

You always have the choice to download and install Visual C# 2008 Express Edition for free.

Answer 4

Another thing you can try if you don't like the intellisense is change your "new class" template to remove all the using statements. This will force you to learn where classes are and learn more about what they contain.

Answer 5

The C# compiler can take XML documentation comments and output them into an XML file for further processing - this is one of the ways that Microsoft themselves generate the MSDN documentation.

The tool that currently seems popular for post processing of these XML files is SandCastle.

For what it's worth, I found SandCastle a bit difficult to use in isolation, but combining it with Sandcastle Help File Builder gave a process that's worked very well for me.

Answer 6

You can actually use Visual Studio as object browser only. You just open it up, go to View > Object View to see the contents of the class libraries. This doesn't mean you have to use Visual Studio as your IDE though..

Answer 7

I used to use SharpDevelop before moving to Visual Studio Express for fun stuff.

http://www.sharpdevelop.com/