Microsoft .NET platform or Sun Microsystem
By: Richel Fox | Posted: 23rd February 2008
Microsoft defines .NET as a “software to connect information, people, systems and devices.” To connect all the four before mentioned factors via software is not exactly child’s play. Just imagine a task of connecting a Java application running on a OSX Macintosh to VB application on Windows running on an IBM machine. The .NET is the technology that claims to make it all possible “by following and adopting a standard” with the standard being XML. But the question arises how adopting a standard will make things easy to connect?
Let’s assume your teacher asks you to code a program that prints the square root of a number. Just imagine a standard math class that could be accessed and understood by mostly used programming language’s compiler. And if you have an IDE that understands both, then it is not a problem to use the coding scheme of one language and employing the library fileclass of another. That is what people at Microsoft achieved by defining standard classes and introducing a single IDE using the XML standard.
Features: Some of the features of this technology are mentioned below:
— Applications connect to each other using XML web services.
— All products Office, Windows and so forth—-will move towards reliance on XML.
— .NET Framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR) will serve as the common foundation for all development work done on .NET.
XML is referred to as a language that is a child to the HTML but provides more power and extensibility with less complexity. XML web services provide an easier and standardized path to create methods that are understood and executed by different vendors’ software on different platforms.
Common Language Runtime is purely Microsoft’s own idea and they claim that this would give language-independent, object oriented, virtual machine to a programmers helping them to use any language of their choice to create desired .NET applications in the Windows environment.
Products: There is a long list of products, approximately more than 250, out of which only games and certain other oddities don’t come under .NET’s umbrella. All the major packages including Office, Visual Studio, Enterprise servers and all of the Windows variants are members of .NET force. Obviously we are not going to discuss what changes .NET framework has brought into all of the products but two worth mentioning programs are:
Visual Studio .NET: Microsoft’s standard Integrated development environment (IDE) is Visual Studio .NET. Previously, we had different IDE’s for different languages but now Microsoft has come out with a standard IDE that would support Visual Basic.NET, C#.NET and C++.NET.
Amazing isn’t it? But wait there is more. Not only can one test and debug code of the before mentioned languages in a single IDE, but can also use the library files of each other! This is because these libraries and components of all the three languages are integrated into a common set which is called Common Language Runtime. This enables programmers to exert more flexibility, extensibility and reusability that is far beyond current standards. Also testing utilities from Rational and Mercury are available in this single IDE hence opening up ways for third party vendors to manufacture their products with .NET compatibility. For the Java experts amongst us, J#.NET is also included which again integrates strongly with Visual Studio.NET.
.NET Enterprise Servers: .Net technology has given a new look to Microsoft’s line of advanced servers, which include, Win2000 Server, SQL server, Exchange server, Commerce server, Project server, Operations Manager.
One interesting feature of .Net technology is its flexible support for applications which have compatibility for other operating systems, such as Solaris and Linux.
Associated products: Almost all big names in the software industry are ready to port their products to the .NET standard. In fact, Microsoft states that more than 20 languages are going to be integrated into .NET soon. After reading this article if you planning to prepare for Microsoft .Net or any of Microsoft Certification www.testkingdom.com provide the best of the certification study guides and exams preparation tool.
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Tags: programmers, microsoft, complexity, programming language, reliance, macintosh, platforms, math class, virtual machine, windows environment