.NET (Dot NET) Framework is an essential component of the Windows operating system, which helps in creating applications by integrating different programming languages, such as C#, Visual Basic, J#, and Visual C++.
This framework consists of a virtual execution system called the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and a set of class libraries.
CLR is a Microsoft product of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), which is an international standard and a basis for creating execution and development environments in which languages and libraries work together.
The .NET Framework introduced as a bridge to make sure interoperability between applications, which are created using various languages, such as C#, Visual Basic. It integrates the business logic of your program, which is implemented in different programming languages.
Therefore, it makes noteworthy improvements to reuse the code, code specialization, managing the resource, developing applications, security, deployment, and administration of programs created in different programming languages.
Evolution of .NET (Dot NET)
At the time of mid ninety, Java was so popular to develop the application because of its platform independent technique and open source policy of Sun Micro-systems.
Around 2002, Sun Micro systems introduced the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) enterprise edition to create the distributed application, which means, the functioning of an application is distributed on several computers based on the N-tier architecture. As the J2EE was gaining popularity, the market share of Microsoft ultimately led to the turn down. Therefore, Microsoft starts working on a project known as Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS) to recover the market share. The project took around three years to build up, which is now known as .NET. Microsoft released the first version of .NET with the name .NET Framework 1.0 on February 13, 2002, along with the Visual Studio.NET 2002 IDE.
The second revised version of .NET took nearly a year to release and was known as .NET Framework 1.1. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, better known as Visual Studio .NET 2003, was also a part of the second release. The next version, .NET Framework 2.0, was released with Visual Studio .NET 2005 on November 07, 2005.
.NET Framework 3.0, formerly called WinFX, was then released on November 06, 2006. The next version, .NET Framework 3.5 was released with Visual Studio .NET 2008 on November 19, 2007, The latest version, the .NET Framework 4.0, was announced by Microsoft on September 29, 2008 and on April 12, 2010, the final version of .NET Framework 4.0 was released.
Architecture of .NET ? .NET Architecture
The best version of .NET provides a framework that helps in developing portable, scalable, and robust applications. The applications developed in .NET Framework 4.0 can be executed in distributed environment. Therefore you can say that the .NET Framework 4.0 is designed to address the latest needs of the developers.
In addition to view enhancements, the architecture of .NET Framework 4.0 mainly consists of components of .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0, as show in figure above.
