Accelerated C# 2010

Chapter 2. C# and the CLR

As mentioned in the previous chapter, managed applications and native applications have many differences, mainly because managed applications run inside the Microsoft CLR. The CLR is a Virtual Execution System (VES)that implements the CLI. The CLR provides many useful facilities to managed applications, including a highly tuned GC for memory management, a code access security layer, and a rich self-describing type system, among others. In this chapter, I'll show you how the CLR compiles, packages, and executes C# programs.

Note

In-depth coverage of the CLR is outside the scope of this book, because I focus closely on C# concepts and usage. However, I recommend that you become familiar with the CLR. It's always best to know ...