Chapter 1. ASP.NET and the .NET Framework
Microsoft first announced ASP.NET (then called ASP+) and the .NET platform in July, 2000. .NET is, in essence, a new development framework that provides a fresh application programming interface to the services and APIs of classic Windows operating systems, especially Windows 2000, while bringing together a number of disparate technologies that emerged from Microsoft during the late 1990s. Among the latter are COM+ component services, a commitment to XML and object-oriented design, support for new web services protocols such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI, and a focus on the Internet, all integrated within the DNA architecture.
ASP.NET represents a significant enhancement to and extension of classic ASP. ASP programmers will be very pleased by how easy the transition to ASP.NET is, yet there is tremendous power and flexibility in the new development platform. ASP and ASP.NET applications can run side by side, allowing for easy migration of legacy applications.
This chapter introduces both ASP.NET and the .NET platform, notably the .NET Framework.
The .NET Framework
The .NET Framework sits on top of the operating system, which can be any flavor of Windows,[1] and consists of a number of components. Currently, the .NET Framework consists of:
Four official languages: C#, Visual Basic .NET, Managed C++, and JScript .NET.
The Common Language Runtime (CLR), an object-oriented platform for Windows and web development that all these languages share. ...
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