Chapter 1 - C# and .NET Architecture | |
bySimon Robinsonet al. | |
Wrox Press 2002 | |
C# is a new programming language, and is significant in two respects:
It is specifically designed and targeted for use with Microsoft's .NET Framework (a feature-rich platform for the development, deployment, and execution of distributed applications)
It is a language based upon the modern object-oriented design methodology, and when designing it Microsoft has been able to learn from the experience of all the other similar languages that have been around over the 20 years or so since object-oriented principles came to prominence
One important thing to make clear is that C# is a language in its own right. Although it is designed to generate code that targets the .NET environment, it is not itself part of .NET. There are some features that are supported by .NET but not by C#, and you might be surprised to learn that there are actually features of the C# language that are not supported by .NET (for example operator overloading)!
However, since the C# language is intended for use with .NET, it is important for us to have an understanding of this Framework if we wish to develop applications in C# effectively. So, in this chapter we're going to take some time to peek beneath the surface of .NET. Let's get started.