Looking Back and Looking Ahead


The .NET Framework covers a broad set of functionality (this chapter didn't even look at all of it!). Even so, the framework has great room for growth.

The first release of the .NET Framework focuses on putting the right infrastructure in place for building applications on the server and on the client. It removes the drudgery from the software development and maintenance process in several ways:

  • By reducing the "glue code" that developers have to write in many of today's systems

  • By making designing for customization and extensibility possible (the framework is not a black box)

  • By building in from the ground up standards and best practices from the Web

  • By offering a unified programming model that decouples the developer's choice of language from the choice of application model

This broad, consistent, secure library of functionality is sure to form a kernel of application development for years to come.

Of course, there is certainly more work to do. Far too many real-world applications must resort to COM Interop or PInvoke to gain necessary access to platform features. The ability to drop down to native code is an important back door, but developers forced out that door lose many of the core benefits of the .NET Framework: Development becomes more tedious (more of the glue code returns), installation affects more elements and becomes more complicated, and semi-trusted execution is not possible. Both more depth and more breadth are required in the framework. For the areas already exposed in the .NET Framework, more of the underlying features need to be exposed (Windows XP theme support in Windows Forms, for example). However, most of the work needed in the framework will focus on extending its scope. The framework needs to be broad enough that nearly every application requires functionality from only the framework or a similar third-party library. Along those lines, multimedia support is an obvious omission in the current version of the .NET Framework.



Programming in the .NET Environment
Programming in the .NET Environment
ISBN: 0201770180
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 146

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