.Net Framework Essentials

Core Features and Languages

Since one of .NET’s goals is to support a common paradigm for application programming, it must specify and utilize programming concepts consistently. In this section, we will examine three core Microsoft .NET languages, including Managed C++, VB.NET, and C#, and several core programming concepts that all .NET languages support, including:

Namespace

Mitigates name collisions.

Interface

Specifies the methods and properties that must be implemented by objects that expose the interface.

Encapsulation

In object-oriented languages, allows a class to encapsulate all its data and behavior.

Inheritance

Allows a class to inherit from a parent class so that it can reuse rich functionality that the parent class has implemented, thus reducing development effort and programming errors.

Polymorphism

Permits developers to specify or implement behaviors in a base class that can be overridden by a derived class. This is a very powerful feature because it allows developers to select the correct behavior based on the referenced runtime object.

Exception handling

Allows us to write easier-to-understand code because it allows us to capture all errors in a common, understandable pattern—totally opposite to that of nine levels of nested conditional blocks.

While this is not a complete list of concepts that .NET supports, it includes all the major .NET concepts that we want to cover in this section. We will show you examples of all these features in Managed C++, VB.NET, and C#. ...