1.1 What
is .NET
The
.NET framework provides a controlled
environment for developing and running applications. Framework
provides a rich library of APIs that applications can use. This library
includes functions for GUI, accessing databases, communicating across networks
and much more.
1.2 Why
.NET
·
Comprehensive interoperability with existing
code.
·
Complete and total language integration.
·
A common runtime engine shared by all
.NET-aware languages.
·
A comprehensive base class library.
·
A truly simplified deployment model
1.3 Introducing
the Building Blocks of the .NET Platform (the CLR, CTS, and CLS)
.NET can be understood as a
runtime environment and a comprehensive base class library. The runtime layer
is properly referred to as the common
language runtime, or CLR.
The primary role of the CLR is to
locate, load, and manage .NET types on your behalf. The CLR also takes care of
a number of low-level details such as memory management; creating application
domains, threads, and object
context boundaries; and performing various security checks.
Another building block of the
.NET platform is the Common Type
System, or CTS. The CTS specification
fully describes all possible data types and programming constructs supported by
the runtime, specifies how these entities can interact with each other, and
details how they are represented in the .NET metadata format.
The Common Language Specification (CLS) is a related specification that
defines a subset of common types
and programming constructs that all .NET programming languages can agree on.
Thus, if you build .NET types that only expose CLS-compliant features, you can
rest assured that all .NET-aware languages can consume them. Conversely, if you
make use of adata type or programming construct that is outside of the bounds
of the CLS, you cannot guarantee that every .NET programming language can
interact with your .NET code library.
