Why Would I Want to Use the .NET Framework

Anyone who's ever written Windows programs both with and without the .NET Framework recognizes the difficulties of writing even simple Windows applications using the Win32 API. The .NET framework was designed to provide a simpler way to do the common things you need to do in a Windows program and to eliminate many of the things that the average developer doesn't want to worry about, such as memory management.

With developers freed from some of the more mundane tasks, such as spending three days trying to track down a memory leak bug, they can actually add features to the games they are writing. Too many times, great features are cut from a game because of the amount of time dedicated to solving problems that the .NET framework solves for you.

Another interesting feature of the .NET framework is that it is language agnostic. As long as the features being used are Common Language Specification (CLS) compliant, any language that can use CLS-compliant features will work. In the past, the developer who only knew Visual Basic would have a difficult time transitioning to code using strictly C++. Now, the developer using Visual Basic .NET can transition to C# more easily because there are only minor syntax differences between the two languages. The code in this book is written in C#.