.NET Common Language Runtime Unleashed

Historical Backdrop of the War of Who Will Manage Your Code

The idea of managing code to increase a programmer's productivity and the robustness of software products has been around for some time now. It is the level of management that has increased with the CLR and the JVM. Going back to the days when you programmed on a limited budget of memory, you had to be constantly aware of the memory cost of your program, which proved to severely limit a programmer's productivity. A scheme was devised in which a programmer had to worry much less about memory because memory was now “virtual” and a programmer could almost assume that it was in limitless supply. With the CLR and the JVM, the programmer not only worries less about memory (it's no longer necessary ...