MCS Society.NET Tech Talk Series

Thursday, November 7th, 2002

What is .NET?

Michael Dunn (mdunn@cs.drexel.edu)Drexel University Student Ambassador to Microsoft

Topics

• Introduction

• Basics

• Myths

• The technology– Language Independence– Operating System Independence– Platform Independence

• Conclusions

Introduction

• First in a series of .NET Technical Talks sponsored by Drexel’s Math and Computer Science Society.

• High level overview of .NET

• Future talks include much lower level discussion

• Please hold detailed questions till the end

Basics (cont.)

• The motivation behind designing .NET was to enable easy creation of web services.

• C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) are now international standards.

• Many highly successful brand name companies are early adopters of .NET

Basics (cont.)

• Honeywell• GlaxoSmithKline• Bank of New York• Accenture• KPMG• Scandinavian Airlines

System• Carnival Cruise Lines• Credit Suisse First

Boston• Hewlett Packard• Deutsche Bank• Hitachi, Ltd.

• The Virgin Group• USDA• Coca-Cola Company• FleetBoston Financial• Continental Airlines• Verizon• Xerox• Fidesic• Expedia• MSNBC• NASDAQ• Zagat Survey

Basics (cont.)

Myths

• .NET is yet another attempt by Microsoft to shut down Open Source

• .NET is a Microsoft technology

• .NET only works with Microsoft Windows

• .NET costs a lot of money

• By using .NET I am supporting Microsoft

The technology

• Key concepts:– Language Independence– Operating System Independence– Platform Independence

The technology (cont.)

Operating System

Common Language Runtime

.NET Framework (Base Class Library)

Web Services and XML Console and GUIs

Common Language Specification

VB C++ C# Perl Python

The technology (cont.) :Language Independence

Ada

APL

AsmL

Basic (VB)

C#

C

C++

CAML (F#)

COBOL

Component Pascal

ECMAScript (JScript)

Eiffel

Forth

Fortran (2)

Haskell

lcc

Java (J#)

Mondrian

ML

Mercury

Oberon

Oz

Pascal

Perl

Python

Scheme

SmallTalk

http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/lang/ for more info.

The technology (cont.) :Operating System Independence

• Despite being designed by Microsoft, .NET was not created with one operating system in mind.

• A “shared source” CLI (SSCLI - codenamed ROTOR) is available for porting.

The technology (cont.) :Operating System Independence (cont.)

• Ximian – “Mono” http://www.go-mono.org

• GNU’s – “dotGNU”http://www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/

• Since its an open standard, anyone can implement .NET for any operating system.

The technology (cont.) :Platform Independence

• Intermediate Language (IL) is converted into machine instructions by the CLR

• The CLR is part of the open standard, and can be implemented for just about any system architecture

Conclusions

• .NET is (r)evolutionary

• .NET is not a be all end all solution for every programming project

• Just as (C++ != AT&T) && (Java != Sun) (.NET != Microsoft)

• Lots of exciting .NET services to come!