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What is .NET
 It is an open source platform developed by Microsoft for
building many types of applications
 A .NET application can be developed in multiple languages,
using different editors and libraries
 Some of the languages are C#, F#, Visual C++, Visual Basic etc
 It is tool to build and run C# programs and other language
programs
 When .NET is downloaded, many other programs are
downloaded that translate code into instructions that are
understandable by the computer
 It also provide utilities for building software
 It defines a set of data types to store information in programs
.NET Versions
There are few versions of .NET to do a particular job
under different platforms/ environments
.NET framework is the original version of .NET that only
runs on Windows platform
.NET core is the new cross-platform version of .NET that
runs on Windows, MacOS and LINUX computers
Languages in .NET
.NET application can be written in C#, F# or Visual
Basic
C# is a simple, modern, object-oriented and type safe
programming language
F# is a programming language that makes it easy to
write concise, robust and performant code
Visual Basic is an approachable language with a simple
syntax for building type-safe object-oriented apps
Cross-platform
The code developed in any of the language will run
natively on any compatible operating system
Many types of apps can be developed with .NET. Some
are cross platform and some target-specific set of
operating systems and devices
.NET Classes and API
.NET provides a standard set of base class libraries
and API's that are common to all .NET applications
Each application model can also expose additional
API's that are specific to the operating system it runs
on or the capabilities it provides
For example:
ASP.NET is the cross-platform web framework that
provides additional API's for building web apps that runs
on Windows or Linux
ASP.NET
To build programs for the web like websites more tools
are to added on top of .NET
One of the popular tools is ASP.NET
To keep .NET and ASP.NET separate, .NET is called a
platform and ASP.NET is called a framework
.NET Strategy
.NET is a software framework that includes everything
required for developing software for web services
It integrates presentation technologies, component
technologies and data technologies on a single
platform
It enables users to develop internet applications as
easily as on a desktop system
.NET Software Components
Microsoft .NET software solution includes three key
components
Microsoft .NET Platform
Microsoft .NET Products and Services
Third-party .NET Services
.NET Platform
Microsoft .NET platform includes the following
components to help develop a new generation of smart
Internet Services
.NET infrastructure and tools
.NET user experience
.NET building block
.NET device software
.NET Products and Services
Microsoft .NET products and services consists of the
following:
Windows .NET
MSN .NET
Office .NET
Visual Studio .NET
Personal subscription services etc
Third Party Services
Third-party .NET services will provide opportunities
to a vast range of developers and users to produce
corporate and vertical services using .NET platform
Technological Development of .NET
The current technology of .NET has gone through
three significant phases of development
OLE Technology
COM Technology
.NET Technology
OLE Technology
OLE technology was developed by Microsoft in the early
1990's to enable easy inter process communications
OLE provided support to achieve the following
 To embed documents from one application into another
application
 To enable one application to manipulate objects located in

another application
This enabled users to develop applications which
required inter-operability between various products
such as MS-Word and MS-Excel
COM Technology
 Before COM Technology the monolithic approach had been used for developing
software
 When programs become too large and complex, this approach created problems in
terms of maintainability and testing of software
 This problem was overcome by the introduction of component-based approach for
developing software
 A program is broken into a number of independent components where each one offers a
different functionality
 Each component can be developed and tested independently and then integrated into
the main system
 This is known as Component Object Model (COM) and the software built using COM is
referred to as componentware
 COM technology advantages are:
 Reduces the overall complexity of the software
 Enables distributed development environment across multiple departments or
organizations
 Enhances software maintainability
.NET Technology
 .NET technology is a third generation component model
 It provides a new level of inter-operability compared to COM
technology
 COM provides a standard binary mechanism for inter-module
communication
 This is replaced by an Intermediate Language called (MSIL) or simply
IL in the .NET technology
 Various .NET language compilers enforce inter-operability by compiling
code into IL.
 IL is automatically compatible with other IL modules
 IL allows true cross-language integration
 In addition to IL , .NET includes a host of other technologies and tools
that enables to develop and implement Web-based applications easily
.NET Framework
It is a software development framework developed by Microsoft that
provides a common programming platform for the development of
applications such as Websites
It was originally released with Microsoft's first version of its
Windows OS in 1993 and has undergone various changes since then
.NET framework is the tool provided by the .NET infrastructure and
tools component of the .NET platform
.NET platform provides a new environment for creating and
running robust, scalable and distributed applications over the Web
C# derives much of its power from .NET framework on which it
runs
 It is a collection of software components and API's for building and
running applications on Microsoft's .NET platform
 This includes Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Server and other
operating systems
 It provides a common programming model that developers can use to
create programs that can run on multiple platforms
 It enables to write once and save it in different projects for different types
of devices
 It also includes number of libraries that provide common functionality
such as data access, controls and user interfaces
 These libraries make it easier to build applications that work across
multiple platforms
 .NET Framework is a key component of the Microsoft .NET system and is
available for free under an open source license
Features of .NET Framework
It provides an environment for building, deploying and running
web services and other applications.
It consists of three distinct technologies
 Common Language Runtime (CLR)
 Framework base Classes
 User and Program Interfaces (ASP.NET and Winforms)
For the programs coded in any of the supported language
 CLR is the core of the .NET framework and is responsible for loading
and execution of programs
 Base classes provide basic data types, collection classes and other
general classes to be used by C# & any other languages
 The top layer consists of a set of classes for developing web services
and to deal with the user interface
.NET Framework Architecture
The architecture of .NET framework focuses on two
things
The framework code is largely independent of the
language in which it is written.
 For eg: A framework written in C# can also call libraries
written in C++ or other programming languages which makes
it portable to other platforms
Second goal is that it should be easy to adopt i.e. it is
designed in such a way that it makes it easy to
incorporate new features and new functionality into an
existing program
The Key Components
Language Library CLR

Common
Framework
Winform Language
Class Library
Runtime

ASP.NET Class Library

ADO.NET
WinForms
It is a smart client technology for the .NET framework
It is a free and open source GUI class library included
as a part of .NET Framework to provide a platform for
developing client side applications for desktop, laptop
etc.
It is a set of managed libraries that simplifies common
application tasks such as reading and writing to the
file systems
ASP.NET
It is a server side technology and a web framework
designed and developed by Microsoft
It is used to develop dynamic websites, web
applications and web services
It provides an integration of HTML, CSS and
Javascript
ADO.NET
It is a module of .NET framework which is used to
establish a connection between application and data
sources
Data sources can be SQL Server
ADO.NET contains classes that can be used to
connect, retrieve, insert and delete data
Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
of .NET
 CLI is a platform-independent development system from Microsoft that
enables program written in different languages to run on different types of
hardware
 CLI is an app development framework that is language-independent
which makes it easier to port the application across different platforms
 It streamlines the process of migrating app across different platforms due
to standard code structure, a single standard library, a single standard
application deployment process across all platforms
 Developers do not have to worry about changing the language or syntax of
their source code while switching from one platform to another
 CLI includes CTS and CLS
 It does not matter in what language the program is written, they are
compiled into Intermediate Language which is further compiled into the
target machine language by CLR
Common Type Systems(CTS)
 .NET framework provides multiple language support using the feature
known as Common Type Systems that is built into the CLR
 A language supporting multiple data types is known as CTS. It
standardizes the data types of all programming languages under the .NET
umbrella
 CTS supports a variety of types and operations found in most
programming languages and therefore calling one language from another
does not require type conversions
 It defines how these types are declared, used and managed in the runtime
 It facilitates cross-language integration, type safety and high-performance
code execution
 C# is specially designed for .NET platform , but a number of .NET
programs in number of other languages including C++ and Visual Basic
can be build
Common Language Specifications(CLS)
The CLS defines a set of rules that enables inter-operability on the
.NET platform
It defines a set of rules and restrictions that every language must
follow which runs under the .NET framework
The languages which follows this set of rules are said to be CLS
compliant which enables cross-language integration
These rules serves as a guide to third-party compiler designers
and library builders
CLS is a subset of CTS and therefore language supporting CLS
can use each other's libraries as if they are own
Application Program Interfaces(API's) that are designed following
the rules of CLS can easily be used by all other .NET languages
Common Language Runtime(CLR)
 CLR is the core i.e. heart and soul of the .NET framework
 It is included during the installation of the framework
 When IIS is installed it is automatically installed
 It is a runtime environment in which programs written in C# and any other .NET languages
are executed
 It also supports cross-language inter-operability
 Services provided by CLR are
 Loading and execution of programs
 Memory isolation for other programs
 Verification of type safety
 Compilation of IL into native executable code
 Providing metadata
 Memory management(automatic garbage collection)
 Enforcement of security
 Inter-operability with other systems
 Managing exceptions and errors
 Support for tasks such as debugging and profiling
CLR Activities when application is executed
Source code is compiled into IL
Metadata engine creates meta information
IL & Metadata are linked with other native code if
required and resultant code is saved
During execution IL and any other requirement from the
base class library are brought together by the class loader
The combined code is tested for type safety
Then it is compiled by the JIT(Just-in-time) compiler to
produce native machine code which is sent to the run-
time manager for execution
Microsoft Intermediate Language(MSIL)
 MSIL or IL is an instruction set into which all the .NET programs are compiled
 It is similar to assembly language and contains instructions for loading,
storing, initializing and calling methods
 When a C# program or any other language program coded in CLS-compliant
language, the source code is compiled into MSIL
 MSIL defines a set of portable instructions that are independent of any
specific CPU.
 In essence, MSIL defines a portable assembly language.
 One other point: Although MSIL is similar in concept to Java’s bytecode, the
two are not the same.
 It is the job of the CLR to translate the intermediate code into executable
code when a program is run. Thus, any program compiled to MSIL can be
run in any environment for which the CLR is implemented. This is part
of how the .NET Framework achieves portability.
Managed Code
CLR is responsible for managing the execution of code
compiled in the .NET platform
The code that is executed as per the specifications of the CLR
during runtime is called the managed code
Compilers that are compatible to .NET platform generates
managed code
For example:
 C# compiler generates managed code which is the IL code
 All manged code generated by C# compiler or any other compiler
capable of generating managed code is called the IL code
 This IL code is then converted into native machine code by the JIT
compilers
Unmanaged Code
The opposite of managed code is unmanaged code.
Unmanaged code does not execute under the
Common Language Runtime and is executed by the
Operating System
 All Windows programs prior to the creation of
the .NET Framework uses unmanaged code.
It is possible for managed code and unmanaged code
to work together, so the fact that C# generates
managed code does not restrict its ability to operate in
conjunction with preexisting programs
Framework Class Library(FCL)
It has some advance class libraries
It is a superset of BCL
It is a wider library that contains ASP.NET, WinForms,
XML stack, ADO.NET
Framework Base Classes(BCL)
 Base Class Library(BCL) is also known as Class Library is a core class library
 It is a subset of Framework Class Library
 It is a collection of reusable types that are closely integrated with CLR
 These libraries can be used by
 simply instantiating them and invoking their methods OR
 Inheriting them through derived classes and thus extending their
functionalities
 Many of the functionality in the base framework classes reside in the vast
namespace called "System"
 The base classes of the "System" namespace can be used for
 Input/Output operations
 String Handling
 Manging arrays, lists, maps, etc.
 Accessing files and file systems
 Accessing the registry
 Security
 Windowing
 Windows Messages
 Database management
 Evaluation of mathematical functions
 Drawing
 Managing Errors and exceptions
 Connecting to the internet etc.
User and Program Interfaces
The following tools are provided by .NET Framework
for managing user and application interfaces
Windows forms
Web Forms
Console Applications
Web Services
These tools enable to develop user-friendly desktop-
based as well as web-based applications using a wide
variety of languages on the .NET platform
Visual Studio .NET
Visual Studio .NET (VS .NET) supports an Integrated
Development Environment(IDE) with a rich set of features and
productivity tools
These tools enables faster development of web-applications
Using Web services and XML , a single environment is to be
learnt, configured and is used irrespective of the language used
No need to switch back and forth between environments to
build, debug and deployment of code
It provides tools that extends support to the development cycle
It acts as a foundation for the life cycle platform
.NET Languages
Following are some of the languages that can be used to build application
in .nET environment
 C# (Specially created for .NET)
 C++
 Visual Basic
 Jscript
Third-party languages
 COBOL
 Eiffel
 Perl
 Python
 SmallTalk
 Mercury
 Scheme
Advantages of .NET approach
Simple and faster system development
Rich object model
Enhanced built-in functionality
Many different ways to communicate with the outside world
Integration of different languages into one platform
Easy deployment and execution
Wide range of scalability
Inter-operability with existing applications
Simple and easy to build sophisticated development tools
Fewer bugs
Potentially better performance
C# and the .NET
C# is a new programming language introduced
with .NET
It is a concise and elegant .NET language
In many ways it is a version of the .NET object model
With C# developers can quickly implement
applications and components using the built-in
capabilities of the .NET framework
Since C# code is managed by the CLR it becomes
leaner and safer than C++
To build program with C#, .NET platform is required
How C# Relates to the .NET Framework
Although C# is a computer language that can be studied on
its own, it has a special relationship to its runtime
environment, the .NET Framework. The reason for this is
twofold.
 First, C# was initially designed by Microsoft to create code for
the .NET Framework.
 Second, the libraries used by C# are the ones defined by
the .NET Framework.
Thus, even though it is possible to separate C# the language
from the .NET environment, the two are closely linked.
Because of this, it is important to have a general
understanding of the .NET Framework and why it is
important to C#.
C# and the .NET
CLR extend number of benefits to C# when it is
implemented on the .NET platform which are as
follows:
Interoperability with other languages
Enhanced security
Versioning support
Debugging support
Automatic garbage collection
XML support for Web-based applications