ADO.NET

Introduction to .NET

What is .NET ?

Since quite some time each person is talking about .NET, but what actually is .NET ? In this Article i will explain you the meaning and the advantages of .NET.

The .NET Framework introduces a completely new model for the programming and deployment of applications. .NET is Microsoft_s vision of "software as a service", a development environment in which you can build, create, and deploy your applications and the next generation of components, the ability to use the Web rather than your own computer for various services.

Microsoft introduced great technologies like COM, DCOM, COM+ etc. to enable reuse of Software. Although these technologies are very powerful to reuse Software, they required a huge learning curve. According to this aspect, Microsoft realized that its time to come up with a new Technology, a better one, an easier one, a new Framework, within which each Programming Task is easy accomplished.

The .NET Framework was born:

Microsoft changed all complex tasks with the new .NET Framework. That was a huge advantage for all developers. Most of the Win32 API was now accessible through a very simple Object Model. Most of the features and functions of C++ were added to Visual Basic. A new Programming Language C# was introduced, which offered flexibility and productivity. ASP.NET also called ASP+ replaced ASP. 

It provides the easiest and most scalable way to build, deploy and run web services. ASP.NET server controls enable an HTML-like style of declarative programming that let you build great pages with far less code than with classic ASP. VB, C++ and C# Code can be used in other languages f.e. code written in VB can be easily used in C# or in VC++. Also an another benefit is that the you can step between the languages in the debugger. 

The .NET Compilation Stages: 

The Code written in .NET isn_t compiled directly to the executable, instead .NET uses two steps to compile the code. First, the code is compiled to an Intermediate Language called Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). Second, the compiled code will be recompiled with the Common Language Runtime ( CLR ), which converts the code to the machine code. The basic Idea of this two stages was to make the code language independence. 

The major Components ( Layers ) of the .NET framework: 

The top layer includes user and program interfaces. Windows Forms are a new way to create standard Win32 desktop applications, based on the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC) produced for J++. 

Web Forms provide a powerful, forms-based UI for the web. Web Services, which are perhaps the most revolutionary, provide a mechanism for programs to communicate over the Internet using SOAP. Web Services provide an analog of COM and DCOM for object brokering and interfacing, but based on Internet technologies so that allowance is made for integration even with non-Microsoft platforms.

Web Forms and Web Services, comprise the Internet interface portion of .NET, and are implemented through a section of the .NET Framework referred to as ASP.NET. The middle layer includes the next generation of standard system services such as ADO.NET and XML. These services are brought under the control of the framework, making them universally available and standardizing their usage across languages. 

The last layer includes system-level capability that a developer would need.