A few years back (well, many years now actually)... Microsoft gave me a free copy of Visual Studio 6 Professional Edition for taking and passing a MCSD beta exam.

At the time, I was amazed because I think the software retailed for like $1000. It was like winning $1000 in a lottery - well, not exactly but still... free expensive software.

Nowdays, Microsoft offers their Visual Studio Express products free. I am using Express to assist with a big Open Source development project from home, and it's incredible that it is free. In fact, they may have lost a sale of the retail version of Visual Studio 2005 to me, because I don't need it.

Yesterday I heard that Borland is offering it's Turbo products free - Turbo C#, Turbo Delphi, Turbo C++. Wow again. So if I wasn't using Express already, I would definitely try Turbo C#.

Java people have Eclipse, which I hear is really good. Are there any other really good free development tools out there? Let me know.