Let’s see what Microsoft .NET is.
Microsoft .NET is an umbrella term that applies to a wide collection of products and technologies from Microsoft. Most have in common a dependence on the Microsoft .NET Framework, a component of the Windows operating system.
Microsoft products and components that fall into the .NET category include:
- The Microsoft .NET Framework, an operating system component required by most .NET products.
- .NET Passport
The .NET Passport is of no importance in the programming context as it involves a free online account by Microsoft allowing you access to evaluation software and some reference material. It works pretty much the same way as the Google Account. It also includes online services like email, chat, etc from MSN and some contests for students referred to as the Imagine Cup and Student Rock star. Recently, the .NET Passport has been replaced by what Microsoft now calls as the Windows Live Account.
The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software component that can be added to or sometimes accompanied with the Microsoft Windows operating system. It provides a large body of pre-coded solutions to common programming requirements, and manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework. The .NET Framework is a key Microsoft offering, and is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform.
The pre-coded solutions form the framework’s class library cover a large range of programming needs in areas including: user interface, data access, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. These solutions include support for most of the common programming languages such as C, C++, Visual Basic, ASP, etc… That means that there are separate solutions for each programming language. The functions of the class library are used by programmers who combine them with their own code to produce applications.
Programs written for the .NET Framework execute in a software environment that manages the program’s runtime requirements. This runtime environment, which is also a part of the .NET Framework, is known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR provides the appearance of an application virtual machine, so that programmers need not consider the capabilities of the specific CPU that will execute the program. The CLR also provides other important services such as security mechanisms, memory management, and exception handling. The class library and the CLR together compose the .NET Framework. The framework is intended to make it easier to develop computer applications and to reduce the vulnerability of applications and computers to security threats. First released in 2002, it is included with Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista, and can be installed on most of the older versions of Windows.
Now that we’ve seen what the .NET framework does and now let’s see why should we bother about it.
Now, let me give you a very simple example of a swap operation between two variables. Which of the following makes sense or makes more sense or is easier to handle?
Is it,
#1. swap(a,b)
Or is it
#2. t=a , a=b, b=t
If you are saying that #2 makes more sense or is easier to handle than #1 then I can’t find words to tell you how wrong you are. My answer would be #1 for making more sense. Now think of the possibility of writing a complex procedure involving lots of swap operations. Would you prefer to write something like #2 or would you be more conscious of the real world time requirements and prefer to write something like #1 than like #2?
This is the reason behind the popularity of the .NET framework. The old concept that says “Do not re-invent the wheel” (as it is nothing but a waste of time) is followed to the full extends. Thus, programming with the .NET is so easy that you can build applications that would probably take you a week or so using the traditional method, in about say a couple of hours or at most a day or two, depending on what you are making. An example I can give you here is creating a text editor for windows. I am talking about the equivalent of the windows Notepad. In the traditional way of programming say using C or C++, this job would take 100s of lines of code. Now if we take the classic Win32 API, the 100s become close to a hundred and using .NET, this close to hundred becomes a few lines of code and each of these lines will make sense. This is the advantage of the .NET. You could write very simple code but do very complex operations at the same time.
This advantage is accompanied by an equally powerful disadvantage. I should warn you that some people may disagree with me here. Learning .NET is entirely different from learning conventional programming languages and it is hard. There is a difficulty in learning to use the .NET. The learning process involves familiarization with the .NET framework containing lots and lots of classes and their members, which according to me is quite difficult to remember. This is the only difficulty as far as I have seen, involved in .NET. But once you learn it, programming can be a lot easier. What I am trying to say here is that .NET programming is a bit hard to learn but very easy to use once you’ve managed to learn it.
The Visual Studio .NET and the Visual Studio 2005 are the programming tools built by Microsoft specifically for .NET development yet maintaining the backward compatibility with Win16/32 API including MFC, COM, COM+. Because of the economic factors involved, I have seen only the express edition of the Visual Studio 2005, which has limited features compared to the full release but yet is quite enough for most basic applications. These express editions are available for free download for MSDN subscribers and Windows Live Account (.NET Passport) holders who are having what they call as genuine windows software (the ability to download the software is one of things under what they call “Genuine Advantage”).
Now I hope I could give a rough idea on what .NET is and why we should care about its existence.
isn’t this the same thing u wrote in college magazine?!! 😀
Yup…