.NET is an amazing framework and some extremely powerful enterprise-level applications are built on top of it.

Although I spend the majority of my time outside of work in open-source languages, I spend at least 40 hours a week working within Visual Studio along with several other teams developing a .NET-based application.

Sometime ago, I began using .NET Reflector and I think that every programming working in Microsoft’s environment should have this utility on-hand.

When you’re working on a code base with a number of other teams, or working on a low-level component, challenges are going to arise.

Perhaps it’s performance issues, or maybe it’s the challenge of trying to determine how to achieve a certain task, or simply just becoming familiar with a given application.

Nonetheless, .NET Reflector allows you to view the source and/or IL code for libraries based on the framework.

As much fun as it is to view the source of an application, the ways in which .NET Reflector are valuable are related to situations such as seeing how, say, Microsoft developed a certain component or the framework, or attempting to get an in-depth look of an API from another developer. I’d even go as far as to say that it could be one way to help improve your programming chops.

At any rate, if you spend enough time in Visual Studio, this is one tool that I definitely suggest. There’s a free version and a priced add-in for Visual Studio.