A. .NET Framework 101
by Niels Berglund
The .NET Framework is the latest component platform from Microsoft and probably is one of the biggest changes for software developers since the move from the 16-bit MS-DOS platform to the 32-bit Windows NT platform.
This appendix gives a brief introduction to the .NET Framework and the CLR for those of you who haven't done any development using the .NET Framework.
The Common Language Runtime
One of the biggest changes in the .NET Framework is that there is an execution engine: the CLR (Common Language Runtime), which handles many of the tasks you had to do previously. The runtime is responsible for (among other things):
• Memory management
• Lifetime management (garbage collection)
• Field layout
• Thread ...
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