As many different programming languages as there are there is no surprise that there are so many different programming tools that exists. There are even more books of programming and while some are good only a few are great. Experimenting with each tool is the only way to find the right one. As everyone learns different and has different taste each tool or book has only so many perfect fits. Options give more power to learn and expand. Open Source is a great way to go since there are so many choices and many are few or low cost.

  Microsoft's Visual Studio Suite has been around for a long time now. While I am not the world biggest Microsoft fan the challenge lies in how popular Windows is. Visual Studio includes several different applications with it. Visual Basic is very popular for businesses to write many of there in house applications. As it is simple to make a Visual Basic application. Visual C++, and C# are more powerful languages the down fall of them is however they are windows only once any windows functions are called. Visual J++ I have never used and I don't see myself ever using as I don't use Java much and since Microsoft's Java is not necessarily standard compliant. The Suite offers many features and while the other versions offer much more the basic features included with the free express version should get most projects completed. Addons can be found for Visual Studio to enhance the capabilities. Depending on what is needed of a project it might be possible to fight code that can be reused.

  Aptana Studio is an excellent product. This site is made using Aptana. The benefits of Aptana are great including cross platform. Being able to use the same application of Windows or Linux to do my programming or scripting makes life much easier. Learning the ins and outs of multiple applications can be time consuming and being able to use one on multiple operating systems make it much easier. Aptana allows programming for HTML, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, and more. Plugins allow more feature to be added to the application.

  I have learned so much from this book. I have been able to write much better code for this site and in just a few days I plan on starting the code for the Launch Logger Web Application. The book has been so good that I should have very few issue when I begin to write the application. There are numerious sample applications and projects to complete. I still have several that I could work on. If your looking for a good book that keeps it interesting then this is a good choice.