Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic .NET

1.2. The .NET Framework

The objects you construct with VB.NET will live out their lives within the .NET Framework, which is a platform used to develop applications. The platform was designed from the ground up by using open standards and protocols like XML, HTTP, and SOAP. It contains a rich standard library that provides services available to any language running under its protection.

The impetus behind its creation was the desire to develop a platform for building, deploying, and running web-based services. In spite of this goal, the framework is ideal for developing all types of applications, regardless of the design. The .NET Framework makes child's play of some of programming's most sophisticated concepts, giving you the ability to take advantage of today's cutting-edge architectures:

• Distributed computing using open Internet standards and protocols such as HTTP, XML, and SOAP

• Enterprise services such as object pooling, messaging, security, and transactions

• An infrastructure that simplifies the development of reusable cross-language compatible components that can be deployed over the Internet

• Simplified web development using open standards

• Full language integration that make it possible to inherit from classes, catch exceptions, and debug across different languages

Deployment is made simpler because settings are stored in XML-based configuration files that reside in the application directory; there is no need to go to the registry. Shared DLLs must have a unique hash ...