.NET

Overview

What is it?

A platform for writing and runnnding software from Micrsoft. .NET was relased in 2002 and was a sort of antithesis to Java.

.NET provided an in the middle choice between VB and C++. VB was a nice introduction to programming, but there a lot that cannot be done with the language. On the other hand, C++ is very powerful so that anything can be done, but that said even the easy things are hard.

Origins of C#

Microsoft wanted some sort of in-between of VB and C++. C# was intended to be a language that could manage the tedious tasks such as memory management but that would still be robust and powerful enough to build anything. The code name for this language was COOL (C-Based Object Oriented Language). Microsoft also wanted to build a collection of example code to make getting started with C# easy. This was called the Framework Class Library (FCL).

What is ASP.NET?

ASP.NET allowed non highly experienced web developers to create websites. This tool demcratized webpages. ASP stands for ActiveX Server Pages, which was a very early technolgoy for developing websites. In reality, ASP.NET used XML (not ActiveX), but marketing got in the way of accurate naming.

Where did .NET Core split off?

The idea of this would be a cross-platform tool for manageming web application backends. .NET Core and .NET reunited at .NET 6. Now all of .NET core is cross-platform.

Managed Execution Environments

C# has one of these. It is called the .NET Common Language Runtime, or the CLR. Java also has one called the Java Virutal Machine, or the JVM.