After a long time off, I'm trying to relearn any language at all beyond COBOL/DB2/CICS so, I have some compiler questions.

Is there a more 'top of the line' type compiler out there? And what are some of the pros/cons of different compilers? (If Microsoft Visual Studio is the way to go, fine.. not wanting to start a flame war, but just wanting some opinions either way).

I'm not too concerned about price (If it is in the $200 range), but I'm more interested in ease of use and tools available...

I like using .NET. :)

Microsoft Visual Studio is the most common used I'd expect.

Others to consider:

* Metroworks (crap, but lots of cross platform variants - eg. PSP, PS2 etc.).
* Eclipse (Java & C++ flavours available, multi-platform)

I'd gowith Microsoft Visual Express if you're learning - its free, nearly the same as its big-brother and the debugging tools are great.

I'd gowith Microsoft Visual Express if you're learning - its free, nearly the same as its big-brother and the debugging tools are great.

What is missing from the free version compared to it's big brother?

I like Bloodshed Dev C++

http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html

What is missing from the free version compared to it's big brother?

They have a comparison chart, but I believe the compiler is not the optimizing one (or wasn't with 2005), no installer support, and some other bits. Basically Express is intended for students or those looking to learn the language and is sufficient for that, but not to actually release programs and the like (as expected).

If you want to get into something more modern, I wouldn't hesitate to look at C# either. It's just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to ASP.NET web development using the same language.