.NET Academy is a course-driven tutorial website aimed at providing basic through to advanced courses in programming on the .NET platform. .NET Academy uses .NET Fiddle.

What is .NET Fiddle?

.NET Fiddle does many things, but most importantly it is a great way to learn how to code. With .NET Fiddle, you can type real C# code into your browser and see it execute immediately. There is no downloading of any software, figuring out how to install it, choosing which product type, etc. Just type your code and watch it run. This makes learning quick, interactive and most important of all, fun.

.NET Fiddle is a full featured learning environment. You can explore the full power of .NET, you can even use advanced features such as NuGet packages.

However, it is not a replacement for Visual Studio. Here are somethings you can only do with Visual Studio:

• Use many project types (.NET Fiddle supports a few, but not all of them)
• Create executables that you can distribute to other people
• Install Visual Studio extensions, such as ReSharper
• Use advanced build options, such as pre and post build commands
• Create XAML or Windows Forms apps.

Once you go through a few lessons and get that hang of things, you are strongly encouraged to download the free community version of Visual Studio.