Chapter 1.1. A Quick Introduction to .NET

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IN THIS CHAPTER

• Dispelling the Myth of the .NET Virtual Machine

• Microsoft Intermediate Language (IL)

• An Introduction to .NET Memory Management

• The .NET Framework Type System

• The .NET Framework System Objects

• C# ”A New Programming Language

• How Objects Describe Themselves

• Component Object Model (COM) Interoperability

• Windows Forms, Web Controls, and GDI+

• Tools

• Assemblies, the .NET Packaging System

• Programming with Attributes

• Security

• Ready, Set, GO!

It is possible that Microsoft has made some of the boldest moves in the computer industry. The enormous success of DOS was based on a gutsy move by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer when they told IBM that they had an operating system to sell. Microsoft did it again with the creation of the most widely used operating system in the world by plagiarizing the Apple Macintosh's look and feel.

Now, in possibly the boldest move yet, Microsoft has done it again by totally reinventing the way we will use and program our computers. If you're a programmer of C++, or if you've come to rely on the Windows operating system or Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for your livelihood, then you will without doubt be deeply affected by the implications of .NET.

In the recent past the Internet has become the medium in which we do our business, visit our friends , run our bank accounts, play, chat, and keep in touch with loved ones. This has all been made possible, practical, and affordable by the software written to perform Internet Protocol (IP) communications for the World Wide Web. As the Web has grown in capability and complexity, so has the software required to perform all the millions of IP data transfers to and from our computers. Using e-mail, browsing Web pages, interacting with databases, and running distributed applications have become more complex, and the programming skills and techniques required to create and maintain the software have grown more sophisticated as well. A programmer will often be faced with COM, COM+, DCOM, ASP, SOAP, XML, and XSL on a daily basis, with an ever-growing array of complex SDKs and manuals to contend with.

Microsoft, like many of us in the industry, has been building up operating systems, toolkits, and applications incrementally, depending on the requirements of the current technological focus, adding to existing work with an SDK here and a standard there. The outcome is that operating systems and libraries are not portable, are top heavy, and are full of add-ins, extensions, and compromises. The .NET framework radically changes that. It is not an increment, and it is not a consolidation of work. It's a huge, bold, go-for-it rip that redefines just about everything you know about programming for personal computers of all shapes and sizes, including the languages themselves.

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