Chapter 1. Introducing C# and the .NET Framework
C# is a general-purpose, type-safe, object-oriented programming language. The goal of the language is programmer productivity. To this end, the language balances simplicity, expressiveness, and performance. The chief architect of the language since its first version is Anders Hejlsberg (creator of Turbo Pascal and architect of Delphi). The C# language is platform-neutral, but it was written to work well with the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Object Orientation
C# is a rich implementation of the object-orientation paradigm, which includes encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Encapsulation means creating a boundary around an object, to separate its external (public) behavior from its internal (private) implementation details. The distinctive features of C# from an object-oriented perspective are:
- Unified type system
The fundamental building block in C# is an encapsulated unit of data and functions called a type. C# has a unified type system, where all types ultimately share a common base type. This means that all types, whether they represent business objects or are primitive types such as numbers, share the same basic set of functionality. For example, an instance of any type can be converted to a string by calling its
ToStringmethod.- Classes and interfaces
In a traditional object-oriented paradigm, the only kind of type is a class. In C#, there are several other kinds of types, one of which is an interface. An interface is like a ...
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