By William J. Harding
For the past several
Attention to the Internet and the Web reached a high point in July 2000 when Microsoft announced its vision for future computing, calling it .NET (pronounced dot net ). Ultimately influencing the entire product line, .NET represents one of the most important strategic initiative in Microsoft's history.
Many books and articles have been written about .NET, and many more are scheduled for publishing. This chapter
Microsoft .NET does not describe any one product or service. Rather it is a vision for future computing that includes the way software is developed and what the
The vision for future computing is XML Web services. XML Web services are the basic building blocks of distributed computing on the Internet. People and the computer applications they use are moving toward more communication and collaboration across networks and the Internet. Web services, using
Microsoft .NET is based on open standards. .NET combines the presentation capabilities of HTML with the metadata capabilities of XML. HTML and XML are both a widely supported industry standard defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Microsoft .NET can be divided into the following technology areas:
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The .NET framework forms the foundation for application development. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET provides the tool set used to build XML Web services and applications using the .NET Framework and a common object-oriented programming model.
There are three major goals for .NET Framework:
Microsoft .NET Framework consists of a development environment which includes five key technologies:
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Visual Studio .NET is the only development environment built from the ground up for XML Web services. By allowing applications to communicate and share data over the Internet, XML Web services enable businesses to transform the Internet into a true platform for integrating and delivering their
Microsoft is committed to providing the best development platform and tools for the Internet in a world of
The following table describes several software development issues with .NET solutions.
Solving Software Development Problems using .NET
| Current Problem | .NET Solution |
| Interoperability, integration, and application extensibility are too difficult and too expensive. |
Using XML
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| Competing proprietary software technologies complicate software integration. | .NET uses open standards and embraces all programming languages. |
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Using XML makes data exchange and sharing uncomplicated. Software created using .NET gives users the ability to work with data when it is received. |
| Users working on the Web cannot control their personal information and data. | .NET provides a set of services that allow users to manage their personal information and control access to it. |
| Current computer applications and Web site services do not work well together and exist as islands of information. |
.NET is designed to bring together features and services from multiple sites and companies into a
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