. NET. Technological architecture, for the creation and distribution of software as a service. This means that through the development tools provided by this new technology, programmers will be able to create service-based applications for the web.
Characteristics
According to abbreviationfinder, the programming paradigms of Microsoft technologies are in constant change, reality shows us that the great changes have occurred approximately every 10 years. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the Microsoft.NET platform was developed and introduced to the market, some of the factors that motivated its development are:
- The wide availability of high-speed Internet connections, and even wireless ones.
- The proliferation of new types of hardware devices that are used in everyday life (phones {{Initial release February 13, 2002
Latest stable version 4.0.30319.1 April 12, 2010; 3 months ago (2010-04-12) Genre Framework Microsoft Windows operating system License Proprietary, commercial}} smart phones, Pocket PC’s, HandHelds, Media Centers, etc.)
- The increasing computing power of personal computers and servers based on x86 architectures.
- The emergence of Internet standards to allow communication and integration between various software platforms.
|.Net. Microsoft framework that emphasizes network transparency, regardless of hardware platform and that allows rapid application development. Based on it, the company tries to develop a horizontal strategy that integrates all its products, from the operating system to the market tools.
It provides an extensive set of predefined solutions for general application programming needs, and manages the execution of programs specifically written with the platform.
.NET is included in Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Similarly, the current version of this component can be installed in Windows XP, and in the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems.
Main features
- It is said that it is an intermediate execution platform, since .NET applications are not executed directly by the operating system, they are designed to be executed against a software component called the Execution Environment, in charge of managing the life cycle of any application..
- .NET, starting it, stopping it, interacting with the Operating System and providing services and resources at runtime.
- The Microsoft.NET platform is completely based on the Object Oriented paradigm
- .NET is multi-language: this means that in order to code applications on this platform, we do not need to learn a single specific high-level programming language, but can choose from a wide list of options.
- .NET is a platform that allows the development of mission-critical business applications, meaning that it allows the creation and execution of corporate applications that are critical for the operation of various types of organizations.
- .Net was designed in such a way as to be able to provide a single, uniform and consistent programming model for all types of applications (be they Windows forms, console, Web applications, mobile applications, etc.) and for any hardware device. (PC’s, Pocket PC’s, Smart Cell Phones, also called “SmartPhones”, Tablet PC’s, etc.).
- One of the design goals of.NET was for it to have the ability to easily interact and integrate with applications developed on previous platforms, particularly COM, as there are still a large number of applications developed on that basis today.
- .NET not only integrates easily with applications developed on other Microsoft platforms, but also with those developed on other software platforms, operating systems, or programming languages. For this it makes extensive use of numerous global standards that are widely used in the industry. Some examples of these standards are XML, HTTP, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.
The.Net Framework
The.Net Framework (translated as “Framework”) is the fundamental component of the Microsoft.NET platform, necessary both to be able to develop applications and to be able to run them later in test or production environments.
Main variants
- .Net Framework Redistributable Package: This is the minimum component of the.Net platform that is needed to be able to run applications. Typically this is the variant that is installed in production environments after application development and testing is complete.
It is composed of:
- The.NET platform runtime environment
- Reusable functionality libraries
- .NET Framework SDK – This version contains command line development tools (compilers, debuggers, etc.), reference documentation, samples, and manuals for application developers.
Typically this variant is installed in application development environments, and is more useful to programmers than to end users.
In order to install the SDK (Software Development Kit) Version, it is necessary to previously install the Redistributable Package.
- NET Compact Framework: this is a reduced version of the.NET Framework Redistributable, specially designed to be installed on mobile devices such as Pocket PC’s and SmartPhones.
Components of the framework
The set of programming languages.
Due to the publication of the standard for the common language infrastructure (CLI), language development is facilitated, so the framework.
.NET already supports more than 20 programming languages and it is possible to develop any of the types of applications supported on the platform with any of them, which eliminates the differences that existed between what was possible to do with one or another language.
Some of the languages developed for the.NET framework are: C #, Visual Basic, Delphi (Object Pascal), C ++, J #, Perl, Python, Fortran, Prolog (there are at least two implementations, P # and the Prolog.NET [2]), Cobol and PowerBuilder.
The Base Class Library or BCL.
The Base Class Library (BCL) handles most of the basic operations that are involved in application development, including but not limited to:
- Interaction with peripheral devices Data management (ADO.NET)
- Memory management
- Data encryption
- Data transmission and reception by different means (XML, TCP / IP)
- Administration of Web components that run on both the server and the client (ASP.NET)
This functionality is organized by hierarchical namespaces. The Base Class Library is classified into four key groups: ASP.NET and XML Web Services, Windows Forms, ADO.NET, and.NET.
Common Execution Environment for Languages or CLR
This is the flagship language of the.NET Framework (.NET Framework) and is intended to bring together the benefits of languages such as C, C ++, and Visual Basic into one.
The CLR is the true core of the.NET framework, the execution environment in which applications developed in different languages are loaded, expanding the set of operating system services (W2k and W2003).
The development tool compiles the source code of any of the languages supported by.NET into an intermediate code, the MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language), similar to Java’s BYTECODE.
To generate it, the compiler relies on the Common Language Specification (CLS) which determines the rules required to create CLR- compliant MSIL code.
To run, a second step is needed, a JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler is what generates the real machine code that runs on the client platform. In this way, independent of the hardware platform is achieved with.NET.
JIT compilation is done by the CLR as the program invokes methods. The executable code obtained is stored in the computer’s cache memory, being recompiled again only in the event of a change in the source code.
Assembled
An assembly is primarily a library of compiled code to be used for installations, versioning, and security. There are 2 types:
Process assemblies (EXE) and assembly libraries (DLL). The.NET assemblies contain code in the CIL language, which is usually generated from the.NET languages and then compiled in a CLR runtime Just-in-time compiler.
This can consist of one or more files. The code files are called modules. An assembly can contain more than one code module, and different languages can be used in the different modules to create the .NET assembly. Assemblies can have different decorators that define the execution environment of the same COM +, DCOM, Remouting, etc.
.NET priorities
- Internet technologies through the Web library. XML as a vehicle for transmitting information.
- Increases the presence of information processing modes through the data library.
- New philosophy of building web forms.
Where to install the.NET
The.NET Framework must be installed on any hardware device for running a.NET application to be possible. In the case of desktop applications (also called “Windows Forms”) and console applications (applications whose user interface is a command console), the Framework must be present on the client side (computer where the part of the application that interacts with the user), and on the server only if the application is distributed and has part of its functionality centralized on a single computer.
In the case of Web applications, the only requirement on the client side is to have a browser and a network connection to the server, which must have the.NET Framework installed.
For mobile applications that run on Windows Mobile on a Pocket PC or Smartphone type device, it is necessary to have the.NET Compact Framework installed on the device.