What is .Net ?

==> Runs Primarily on Microsoft Windows

==> Supports language interoperability , that is, each language can use the code which is written in other languages.

==> Programs written in .net runs in an environment called CLR(common language runtime). CLR provides security,memory management and exception handling.

==> Visual Studio is an IDE(Integrated development environment) developed by Microsoft for application development.

==> .Net framework is made of two major components , they are CLR(common language runtime) and FCL(framework class library).

The following diagram shows the .NET Framework




CLR abstracts the underlying operating system from your code, it means that your code has to run using the services provided by the CLR and we get a new name called managed code. The CLR provides its services to applications by providing a standard set of library classes that abstract all the tasks that you will ever need. These classes are called as the Base Class Libraries. On top of this, other development platforms and applications are built (like ASP.NET, ADO.NET and so on). Language compilers that need to generate code for the CLR must adhere to a common set of specifications as laid down by the Common Language Specification (CLS). Above this, you have all the popular .NET languages.

Applications of .Net

1. Windows Application(WinForms) - This API is used for rich GUI applications, that is its a mix of graphics API(for drawing- circle,line,rectangle,pen,brush etc) and control API(button,menu,toolbar,slider etc)

2. Windows Services(Server based) - Application which don't have any UI. Windows service is used for situation where you want to develop an application that is to be run on the background of the OS.

3. ASP.NET Web Applications - ASP.NET is not a programming language. Its a framework for developing web applications . In ASP.NET we use C#,VB.NET as the programming language. The 2 major applications using ASP.NET is WebForms(websites) and WebServices.

4. ASP.NET web services - It is used for the interoperability between .NET applications and Non .Net applications(eg: using java) .Web services works with SOAP protocol(based on xml and http protocol), http is a stateless protocol .

5.Remoting Application - used for distributed application development. Remoting is not interoperable . Much faster than web services.

6. Mobile based Applications - Mobile applications can now be developed to deliver any types of data, to any user, any place in the world!
Different mobile devices support different programming languages. Some support WAP and WML, some support HTML or a limited version of HTML, and some support both or a different language.To support all types of mobile devices, developers must create one different application for each language.

With .NET Mobile, Microsoft has introduced a new platform for developing mobile applications with an extension to the .NET Framework, called the Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit (MMIT) or simply .NET Mobile.

Basic things of .net for beginners

.Net is Application programming . There are 2 types of programming

1.System programming - Programming for a hardware .eg: drivers
2.Application programming- drawing , painting , word processors etc .

Platform - is an environment for developing and executing software applications . There are two types of platforms - development platform and production platform .
Development platform - environment where programmers writes the code .
Production platform - This written code by programmer released to the end user and executes in the target machine .in this environment

Framework - is a collection of classes and interfaces used for developing an application .

For execution of .net application we need .net framework software to be installed on that machine .
Framework Components
- 1. Framework Runtime 2. Framework SDK 3.Visual Studio.Net

Visual Studio.Net - for development of application . Its a commercial product by Microsoft. Its an IDE (Integrated with lots of things for develpment like compiler, debuggers , execute etc ) . Productivity of applications is high rate (RAD- rapid application development) using visual studio.
This studio is an extendable software - that is , this studio can be used for development of applications with other languages also with the help of supportive plug in.