What is .NET Framework?
- .NET Framework is a managed execution environment for Windows that provides a variety of services to its running apps.
- .NET Framework is used to create and run software applications
Two major components of .NET framework
- Common language runtime (CLR)
- It is the execution engine that handles running apps. It provides services like memory management, type safety, exception handling, garbage collection, security and thread management
- .NET Framework Class Library
- It provides a library of tested, reusable code that developers can call from their own apps. The Class Library includes APIs for reading and writing files, connecting to databases, drawing, and more
.NET applications are written in the C#, F#, or Visual Basic programming language. Code is compiled into a language-agnostic Common Intermediate Language (CIL). Compiled code is stored in assemblies—files with a .dll or .exe file extension.
When an app runs, the CLR takes the assembly and uses a just-in-time compiler (JIT) to turn it into machine code that can execute on the specific architecture of the computer it is running on.
What is .NET Framework used for?
- .NET Framework is used to create and run software applications. .NET apps can run on many operating systems, using different implementations of .NET. .NET Framework is used for running .NET apps on Windows.
Who uses .NET Framework?
Software developers and the users of their applications both use .NET Framework:
- Users of applications built with the .NET Framework need to have .NET Framework installed. In most cases, .NET Framework is already installed with Windows. If needed, you can download .NET Framework.
- Software developers use .NET Framework to build many different types of applications—websites, services, desktop apps, and more with Visual Studio. Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) that provides development productivity tools and debugging capabilities.
Architecture of .NET framework :
