The .NET Compact Framework empowers developers by letting them write powerful applications for devices in C# and Visual Basic.
Unlike traditional programming languages, the .NET Compact Framework is founded on "managed code." Using managed code provides many advantages, such as those mentioned in the following items.
Managed code applications feature garbage collection, eliminating bugs related to erroneous memory allocations and releases.
Managed code applications target the same rich class framework regardless of the programming language used.
Managed code programs can pass each other instances of data simply, safely, and easily.
Managed code is portable. The same binaries execute on devices regardless of the CPU on the device.
The Common Language Runtime, or CLR, executes managed code. Its duties include loading managed code and compiling it to native executable code that the device CPU understands. The CLR also insulates managed applications from one another, preventing one malicious application from crashing other running managed applications.
One of the two Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers translates managed code to native code. The SJIT creates faster native code than the IJIT, but it is available only on ARM-based devices.
If a device comes under memory pressure, it will discard the JITed code, a process called code pitching. The least recently executed code is pitched first.
Code pitching is undesirable and can cause severe performance problems if code is frequently pitched, only to be JITed soon thereafter.
The roughly dozen libraries that comprise the .NET Compact Framework are mostly managed code.
