Illustrated C# 2012

C H A P T E R  1

C# and the .NET Framework

• Before .NET
• Enter Microsoft .NET
• Compiling to the Common Intermediate Language
• Compiling to Native Code and Execution
• The Common Language Runtime
• The Common Language Infrastructure
• Review of the Acronyms
• The Evolution of C#

Before .NET

The C# programming language was designed for developing programs for Microsoft’s .NET Framework. This chapter gives a brief look at where .NET came from and its basic architecture. To start off, let’s get the name right: C# is pronounced “see sharp.”¹

Windows Programming in the Late 1990s

In the late 1990s, Windows programming using the Microsoft platform had fractured into a number of branches. Most programmers were using Visual Basic, C, or C++. Some C and C++ ...