INTRODUCING THE .NET FRAMEWORK

Microsoft has introduced the .NET infrastructure with the intention of bridging the gap in interoperability between applications. It aims at integrating various programming languages and services. It is designed to make significant improvements in code reuse, code specialization, resource management, multi-language development, security, deployment, and administration. It consists of all the technologies that help in creating and running robust, scalable, and distributed applications.

The .NET Initiative

The .NET initiative offers a complete suite for developing and deploying applications. This suite consists of .NET products, .NET services, and the .NET Framework. .NET products: Microsoft has already introduced Visual Studio .NET, which is a tool for
developing .NET applications by using programming languages such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual C++ .NET. In addition, Microsoft also intends to introduce .NET versions of the Windows operating system and the Office suite. These products aim at allowing developers to create applications that are capable of interacting seamlessly with each other. To ensure interaction between different applications, all .NET products use eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for describing and exchanging data between applications.

Components of the .NET Framework

The .NET Framework consists three main components. They are the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the .NET Framework Base Classes and the user and program interfaces.

Common Language Runtime(CLR)

The Common Language Runtime is one of the most essential components of the .NET Framework. The Common Language Runtime (CLR) is the environment where all programs in .NET run.

Features Provided by the CLR:

Automatic memory management
Standard type system
Language interoperability
Platform independence
Security management
Type safety

The .NET Framework Base Classes or the .NET Class Framework

The .NET Class Framework Class Library is built on the object-oriented nature of the runtime. provides classes that can be used in the code to accomplish a range of common programming tasks, such as string management, data collection, database connectivity, and file access. can be used in a consistent manner across multiple languages. comprises namespaces, which are contained within assemblies.

The .NET Class Framework Class Library includes

Namespaces help you to create logical groups of related classes and interfaces that can be used by any language targeting the .NET Framework. avoid any naming conflicts between classes that have the same names.

Assembly is a single deployable unit that contains all the information about the implementation of classes, structures, and interfaces. stores all the information about itself. This information is called metadata. provides the CLR with the information required for executing an application. plays an important role in deployment and versioning.

User and Program Interfaces

.NET provides three types of user interfaces:

Windows Forms: They are used in Windows-based applications
Web Forms: They are used in Web-based applications
Console Applications: They are used to create character-based console applications that can be executed from the command line.

.NET provides one program interface: