MICROSOFT .NET FRAMEWORK

The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software technology that is available with several Microsoft Windows operating systems. It includes a large library of pre-coded solutions to common programming problems, a runtime or virtual machine that manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework, and a set of tools for configuring and building applications. The .NET Framework is a key Microsoft offering and is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform.The pre-coded solutions that form the framework's Base Class Library cover a large range of programming needs in a number of areas, including user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. The class library is used by programmers who combine it with their own code to produce applications.Programs written for the .NET Framework execute in a software environment that manages the program's runtime requirements. Also part of the .NET Framework, this runtime environment is known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR provides the appearance of an application virtual machine so that programmers need not consider the capabilities of the specific CPU that will execute the program. The CLR also provides other important services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. The class library and the CLR together compose the .NET Framework.The .NET Framework is included with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. The current version of the framework can also be installed on Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems.[2] A reduced "Compact" version of the .NET Framework also available on Windows Mobile platforms, including Smartphones.OVERVIEWThe .NET Framework is a development and execution environment that allows different programming languages and libraries to work together seamlessly to create Windows-based applications that are easier to build, manage, deploy, and integrate with other networked systems.Built on Web service standards, .NET enables both new and existing personal and business applications to connect with software and services across platforms, applications, and programming languages. These connections give users access to key information, whenever and wherever you need it.Microsoft .NET–connected software makes the "real-time" enterprise real by enabling information to flow freely throughout the organization, accessible to business partners, and delivering value to customers. With .NET-connected software, users can increase the value of existing systems and seamlessly extend those systems to partners, suppliers, and customers.
Connected .NET Framework empowers developers to build applications that require robust messaging systems or flexible workflows.
CompellingWith the .NET Framework, developers and designers can collaborate to create rich user experiences.
Ubiquitous and ProductiveThe .NET Framework, including improvements like LINQ, provides a single platform to quickly build mobile desktop and server-based applications.What's New for 3.5?The .NET Framework 3.5 provides the foundation for building connected and appealing applications, productively, on a wide variety of systems from the device to the data center.Microsoft continues to support developers using the .NET Framework platform by providing support for applications built in previous versions to the 3.5 release, so existing applications built for .NET Framework 2.0 or .NET Framework 3.0 will continue to work.The .NET Framework 3.5 adds new features in several major technology areas:
Deep integration of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and data awareness.
Support for Web 2.0 AJAX-style applications and services in ASP.NET and WCF.
Full tooling support for WF, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), including the new workflow-enabled services technology.
New classes in the base class library (BCL) for the .NET Framework 3.5 address the most common customer requests..NET Framework 3.5 will ship with Visual Studio 2008 and will be available for separate download from MSDN. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0, and includes .NET Framework 2.0 service pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.0 service pack 1....NET vs. Java and Java EEThe CLI and C# have many similarities to Sun's JVM and Java. They are strong competitors. Both are based on a virtual machine model that hides the details of the computer hardware on which their programs run. Both use their own intermediate byte-code, Microsoft calling theirs Common Intermediate Language (CIL; formerly MSIL) and Sun Java bytecode. On .NET the byte-code is always compiled before execution, either Just In Time (JIT) or in advance of execution using the ngen.exe utility.With Java the byte-code is either interpreted, compiled in advance, or compiled JIT. Both provide extensive class libraries that address many common programming requirements and address many security issues that are present in other approaches. The namespaces provided in the .NET Framework closely resemble the platform packages in the Java EE API Specification in style and invocation..NET in its complete form (Microsoft's implementation) is only available on Windows platforms and partially available on Linux and Macintosh, whereas Java is fully available on many platforms. From its beginning .NET has supported multiple programming languages and at its core remains platform agnostic and standardized so that other vendors can implement it on other platforms (although Microsoft's implementation only targets Windows, Windows CE, and Xbox platforms). The Java platform was initially built to support only the Java language on many operating system platforms under the slogan "Write once, run anywhere." Other programming languages have been implemented on the Java Virtual Machine but are not widely used.Sun's reference implementation of Java (including the class library, the compiler, the virtual machine, and the various tools associated with the Java Platform) is becoming open source under the GNU GPL license with Classpath exception. source code for the .NET framework base class library is available under the Microsoft Reference License, which is a closed-source license.The third-party Mono Project, sponsored by Novell, has been developing an open source implementation of the ECMA standards that define the .NET Framework, as well as most of the other non-ECMA standardized libraries in Microsoft's .NET. The Mono implementation is meant to run on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, BSD, HP-UX, and Windows platforms. Mono includes the CLR, the class libraries, and compilers for C# and VB.NET.The current version supports nearly all the APIs in version 1.1 of Microsoft's .NET and almost 96% of the APIs in version 2.0 of Microsoft's .NET. Support for the additional libraries in .NET 3.0 and 3.5 is in the early stages of development, as is support for C# 3.0 and LINQ.