I’ve followed the links on the first page of the thread you linked to. One link is broken, and the others are from as far back as 2009, concern on-device development and not desktop development, and/or don't mention which SDK is preferred these days.

Again, instead of being pointed to a maze of old discussions (some of which are years old, and which often lead to 404s), I’m looking for guidance from someone who has done this recently, i.e. in the last six months or so.