1 Corinthians 12:14 (ESV)
“For the body does not consist of one member but of many.”
This post provides an overview of the .NET developer platform.
.NET is an open-source developer platform utilized for building applications on various operating systems. The developer platform is made up of languages & libraries.
.NET languages
(1) C#: Object-oriented programming language.
(2) Visual Basic (VB)
(3) F# : A functional programming language.
.NET platforms
(1) .NET Core: runs on Windows/Linux/macOS. Not shipped with the Windows OS, needs to be downloaded separately. Documentation link here.
(2) .NET Framework: Windows OS only. Not truly open-source, as .Net Framework does not accept contributions. Included in Windows & updated with Windows updates.
(3) Xamarin/Mono: .NET mobile development
The .NET Standard is the shared set of libraries for the above .NET platforms. Utilizing the .NET Standard library will help your .NET program run anywhere the .NET platforms can be run.
How is .NET built?
.NET is built by Microsoft & thousands of external companies & individual developers in an open-source environment.
Benefits of C#
*** Attribution for information in this section: “Programming C# 12 by Ian Griffiths (O’Reilly). Copyright 2024 by Ian Griffiths, 978-1-098-15836-1.”
C# supports a range of programming techniques: (1) object-oriented features, (2) generics, (3) functional programming, (4) dynamic typing, (5) static typing, (6) LINQ, (7) intrinsic support for asynchronous programming, (8) garbage collection.
Garbage Collecting: The runtime C# utilizes provides a garbage collection feature that takes a large portion of developer work off the table by recovering memory that the program is no longer utilizing. This memory management can be explicit or implicit, depending on programming needs.
C# is open-source.
Common Language Runtime & Common Type System
.NET includes the runtime & the main class libraries that most C# programs will use. This runtime is called the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR is common because it supports the other .NET languages, not just C#.
The CLR utilizes a Common Type System (CTS) which allows the interoperability of code from multiple .NET languages. This allows .NET libraries to be used within the various .NET languages. For instance, CTS allows the F# language to use other .NET libraries written in C# code. C# can use .NET libraries written in Visual Basic code.
More information on the CLR & Managed Code can be found here.
.NET Cloud Support
Beyond the .NET runtime class libraries, are libraries that enable C# programs to utilize cloud services.
Microsoft provides .NET libraries for working with it’s Azure cloud platform. Amazon provides a similar development kit.
Additionally, some libraries are not associated with a particular cloud service & are designed to be utilized as needed. In some cases, this requires modifying an API.
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