

Mono is a free and open-source project designed to provide compatibility between .NET applications and other platforms, especially Linux. Microsoft has created other implementations of. While the platform was ostensibly designed to support hardware other than Windows-based PCs, however, its proprietary nature led to it mostly being used for Windows applications. That code can then be run on any hardware on which. Developers can write their code using any of a number of supporting languages, including such favorites as C#, C++, F#, Visual Basic, and a few dozen others.

There are several advantages to having applications run inside a runtime environment. The runtime environment is really a way of abstracting the application from the actual hardware on which the application runs. CLR also provides some other services, such as managing memory and processor threads, handling program exceptions, and managing security. When a user runs an application, the code for that application is actually compiled into machine code at runtime and then executed. NET world, the runtime environment is named the Common Language Runtime (CLR). Java and Ruby on Rails, for example, both provide their own runtime environments. Many development platforms provide the same kind of thing. A runtime environment provides a virtual machine-like sandbox in which applications run. NET also provides a runtime environment for applications. Other developers can make sense of what a program is doing more easily and users of the applications can count on things like Open and Save As dialog boxes working the same in different applications.īecause in addition to serving as a framework of shared code.

Using a framework of shared code like this also helps provide some standards between applications. Instead, they can focus on the code that’s unique to their applications and the user interface that ties it all together. This shared code makes the lives of developers much easier because they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time their applications need to perform some common function.

NET Framework contains tens of thousands of pieces of shared code. Instead of writing that code themselves, and then writing all the little bits and pieces that have to interpret what the ping results mean, they can use code from the library that performs that function.Īnd that’s just one tiny example. Say, for example, a developer needed their application to be able to ping another IP address on the network. The bits of code in the shared library can perform all kinds of different functions. NET Framework, that library of shared code is named the Framework Class Library (FCL). A framework (in programming terms) is really a collection of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and a shared library of code that developers can call when developing applications, so that they don’t have to write the code from scratch. The name “.NET Framework” itself is a bit of a misnomer.
