Microsoft® .NET Kick Start

Reviewing Managed Code

Key to understanding the .NET Framework and in particular the CLR (Common Language Runtime) is knowing what managed code is. Managed code is code written in any .NET-supported programming language (for example, C#, Visual Basic .NET, J#, Managed C++, JScript.NET, or other third-party supported languages), which executes using the services provided by the CLR. A key highlight of writing managed code is that developers no longer have to worry about memory management (allocating and freeing up memory for the various objects). However, as you dig deeper into what constitutes the CLR, you will realize that there is more to the CLR than just memory allocation and garbage collection.