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Introduction to .Net

.Net is a software framework which is designed and developed by Microsoft. It is a virtual machine for compiling and executing programs written in different languages. It is used to develop form based applications, web based applications and web services. 

The .net framework consists of three main parts:

1. Common Language Runtime.
2. Unified class libraries.
3. Active Server Pages called ASP.net.

CLR ( Common Language Runtime ) : CLR is virtual machine component of .net framework. It is the runtime environment that runs the codes and helps in making development process easier by providing various services like remoting, thread management, memory management etc.. 

FCL ( Framework Class Library ) : FCL is the collection of reusable, object oriented class libraries and methods that can be integrated with CLR. It is just like the header files in C, CPP. .net framework basically the installation of CLR and FCL into the system.

A .net application is platform dependent because which is only able to run on windows based operating system. By using Mono Framework the .net application can run on any operating system, then .net application is platform independent. Visual Studio is the development tool which is used to design and develop .net applications.

CTS ( Common Type System ) : It describes set of data types that can be used in different .net languages in common. CTS ensures that objects written in different .net languages can interact with each other. For communicating between programs written in any .net complaint language, the types have to be compatible on the basic level.

The CTS supports two general categories of types:

Value types: Value types directly contain their data, and instances of value types are either allocated on the stack or allocated inline in a structure.

Reference types: Reference types store a reference to the value's memory address, and are allocated on the heap. Reference types can be self describing types, pointer types, or interface types. The type of a reference type can be determined from values of self describing types.

CLS ( Common Language Specification ) : It is a subset of CTS and it specifies a set of rules that needs to satisfied by all language compilers targeting CLR. It helps in cross language inheritance and cross language debugging.


Features of .net:

1. Rich functionality.
2. Easy development of web applications.
3. OOP's support
4. Multi language support.
5. Multi device support.
6. Automatic memory management.
7. Strong XML support
8. Ease of deployment and configuration
9. Security


.Net framework is designed for cross-language compatibility. It means, .Net components can interact with each other irrespective of the languages they are written in. This cross-language compatibility is possible due to common language runtime. The output of the .Net code after compilation is not  an executable file but a file that contains a special type of code called microsoft intermediate language(MSIL). This can be read and understood by the common language runtime. 


Languages supported by .Net framework:

c# : c sharp
visual c++
f# : f sharp
j# : j sharp
asp.net
ado.net
vb.net
iron python
iron ruby



Installation of .net framework: When you install Visual Studio.net , .net framework is automatically installed on the machine.



Setting path to environmental variables: