.NET Overview - Page 2

In July 2000, Microsoft held the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Orlando, Florida, where they revealed many details to the public about their next generation platform for Windows and Internet software development – .NET.

Microsoft's .NET initiative is broad-based and very ambitious. It revolves around the .NET Framework, which encompasses the actual language and execution platform, plus extensive class libraries providing rich built-in functionality. At its core, the .NET framework embraces XML and SOAP to provide a new level of integration of software over the Internet. There is also a family of server-based products called .NET Enterprise Servers that are to be the next generation of Microsoft's BackOffice.

The .NET Framework introduces a completely new model for the programming and deployment of applications. In his PDC keynote speech, Bill Gates stated that a transition of this magnitude only comes along once every five to six years. The last comparable shifts were the switch from DOS to Windows in 1990 and the migration from 16-bit to 32-bit development (Windows 3.x to Windows 95/NT) in the mid-nineties.

Developers at PDC were excited by the prospect of a dramatically better architecture for software development within the .NET Framework, even though Microsoft made it clear that released products based on .NET are still well into the future. The first release will probably be Visual Studio.NET, the beta-one of which became available in November 2000. No firm dates are available for the full commercial release but general expectation is for fall 2001 at the earliest.

How important is this to Microsoft? Well, their executives have publicly stated that 80% of R&D resources in 2001 are being spent on .NET and the expectation is that most Microsoft products will be ported onto the .NET platform. Also C# (pronounced C- sharp), a new language specifically created for .NET, looks set to become the standard language for internal development within Microsoft.

A Broad and Deep Platform for the Future

Calling the Microsoft.NET Framework a "platform" doesn't begin to describe how broad and deep it is. It encompasses a virtual machine that abstracts away much of the Windows API from development. It includes a class library with more functionality than any other created to date, and a development environment that spans multiple languages. Further more, it exposes an architecture that makes multiple language integration simple and straightforward.

In short, .NET presents a radically new approach to software development. This is the first development platform designed from the ground up with the Internet in mind. Previously, Internet functionality has simply been bolted on to pre-Internet operating systems like Unix and Windows. This has required Internet software developers to understand a host of technologies and integration issues. .NET is designed and intended for highly distributed software, making Internet functionality and interoperability easier and more transparent to include in systems than ever before.

The vision of .NET is globally distributed systems, using XML as the universal glue to allow functions running on different computers across an organization or across the world to come together in a single application. In this vision, systems from servers to wireless palmtops, will share the same general platform, with versions of .NET available for all of them, and with each of them able to integrate transparently with the others. But this does not leave out classic applications, as we've always known them. .NET also aims to make traditional business applications easier to develop and deploy. Some of the technologies of .NET, such as WinForms, demonstrate that Microsoft has not forgotten the traditional business developer.

Your Introduction to .NET

This book will preview much of the technology and structure of .NET, concentrating on the .NET Framework. It should help the reader understand the magnitude of changes involved in the new technology; together with some of the benefits gained and costs endured. The aim is to enable intelligent decisions to be made about the short-term role of .NET, and establish a foundation from which further study can be conducted.

This first chapter will summarize many of the most important aspects of .NET. We'll start by looking at some of the serious drawbacks of current software development that prompted Microsoft to rethink their entire development structure. Then we'll progress to an overview of the overall vision and the major elements in the .NET Framework. Along the way, this chapter will refer to later chapters, which will fill in the details.

Please remember that this book discusses unreleased products. There will no doubt be many changes during the development cycle. In particular, many of the changes relating to language syntax and features are subject to revision. The bottom line is – don't bet the farm on the information presented here. Be prepared for changes as .NET moves closer to actual production.

Introducing .NET
Introducing .NET
Avoiding Confusion – the Role of the .NET Enterprise Servers - Page 3