Microsoft announced .NET 1.0, what is it?

Microsoft recently released version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. If you have been developing Windows applications with Win32, COM, or ASP, you may be wondering what .NET brings to the table. Note that the name is interesting: it starts with a period, and is pronounced "dot NET".

The basic is is this: the .NET Framework provides a managed runtime environment called the Common Language Runtime (CLR). This is similar to Java's JRE.

Applications are compiled into assemblies that run under the CLR:

Application
    ->
Assembly (.exe or .dll)
    ->
Common Language Runtime (CLR)

The runtime provides services such as automatic memory management, security, exception handling, and versioning.

.NET also includes a large class library for common tasks:

• File access
• Networking
• XML processing
• Database access
• Windows graphical user interfaces.

Several programming languages can target the same runtime, including C#, Visual Basic .NET, and Managed C++.

Microsoft positions .NET as a platform for desktop, server, and web application development.

It will be interesting to see how quickly developers adopt the new framework. I think I already like C#, but there's a lot to learn. It is different from Delphi coding.