chapter two

2 Tour de C# and .NET

 

This chapter covers

  • The difference between .NET Core, .NET Framework, and other platforms
  • The release of .NET Framework 5
  • The C# compilation process
  • How to read Intermediate Language

Microsoft created the .NET Framework in the early 2000s. The original use-case for the .NET Framework was developing enterprise Windows applications. The .NET Framework ties together with a large collection of libraries. Whilst , the .NET Framework and C# are often tied at the hip, there are use cases for the .NET Framework without C# (we talk about some of these when discussing the .NET Standard later on in this chapter). The two most important pillars of what makes up the .NET Framework are the Framework Class Library (FCL; a humongous class library that is the backbone of the .NET Framework) and the Common Language Runtime (CLR; the runtime environment of .NET). The FCL contains all the libraries you are likely to use, whilst the CLR executes the code.

2.1       The .NET Framework compared to other platforms

2.1.1   The .NET Framework compared to other platforms: tuples

2.1.2   The .NET Framework compared to other platforms: events

2.1.3   The .NET Framework compared to other platforms: SQL

2.1.4   The .NET Framework compared to other platforms: CSV parser

2.1.5   Exercises

2.2       What is .NET Core?

2.2.1   Exercises

2.3       What is .NET Framework 5?

2.4       How C# is compiled

2.4.1   Step 1: C# code (high-level)

2.4.2   Step 2: Common Intermediate Language (assembly level)

2.4.3   Step 3: Bytecode (Processor Level)

2.4.4   Exercises

2.5       Summary