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Introducing the Microsoft .NET Platform • Chapter 1
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.NET Common Type System defines the size of the base data types that are available to .NET applications, and applications run within the Common Language Runtime environment, the application developer is insulated from the specifics of any hardware or operating system that supports the .NET platform. Although currently this means only Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, work is underway to make the .NET core components available on FreeBSD and Linux.
The .NET architecture now separates application components so that an application always loads the components with which it was built and tested. If the application runs after installation, the application should always run. This is done with assemblies, which are .NET-packaged components. Assemblies contain version information that the .NET Common Language Runtime uses to ensure that an application will load the components it was built with. Installing a new version of an assembly does not overwrite the previous version, thanks to the assembly cache, a specialized container (directory) that store system-installed .NET components.
Given the massive amount of legacy code in use, it was necessary to allow .NET applications to interact with unmanaged code. As you can probably guess, unmanaged code is code that isn’t managed by the .NET Common Language Runtime. However, this code is still run by the CLR, it just doesn’t get the advantages that it offers, such as the Common Type System and Automatic Memory Management. There are a couple of times when you will probably end up using unmanaged code, making API or other DLL calls, interfacing with COM components or allowing COM components to utilize .NET components. However, realize that by calling unmanaged code, you may be giving up portability.
Developing software using .NET technology is a big change; the technology has a lot of pieces to the puzzle and more than a few new ideas. Hopefully, we have given you a solid introduction into the basics, and you now have a foundation upon which to build your skills using the information found in the rest of the book. If you want more detail on a particular feature of the platform, the MSDN Web site contains a vast amount of reference material that covers the features of the .NET platform at a much more technical level than we attempted here.
Solutions Fast Track
Introducing the .NET Platform
0 Software is changing from a closed to a connected world, much like personal computers themselves are. The .NET Framework is designed to
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