Are netbooks powerful enough for programming?

Can I use Visual Studio (or any other IDE) to compile programs on a netbook?
Will it be very slow to write and compile programs on it?

Is buying a netbook only for programming purpose advised?

I believe any newbook should do the job as long as it satisfies the minimum system requirements for Visual Studio.

Is buying a netbook only for programming purpose advised?

Why not?

I heard that netbooks run slow while multitasking.

I am planning to buy a netbook as they are very cheap and portable. The only work I want to do is browsing the net or programming. I guess all netbooks are capable of doing this much amount of work.

What's the system configuration of the netbook you are looking to buy?

Following are the minimum requirements.

Processor - Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz (or more)
RAM - 1 GB (or more)
HDD - 160GB (or more)
Screen Size - >10 inches.

with basic networking support. Machine should run Windows XP smoothly.

I guess almost all netbooks come with an Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor.

HP mini 110-1030 fits these requirements.