Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Wed 20th Feb 2002 18:45 UTC
A lot of people have trouble understanding what .NET really is and what its goals are. Mostly because Microsoft has done a good job of confusing everybody using terms that are not self-explanatory or with terms that mean more that one thing. This editorial will present my thoughts on .NET, what it really is, what its motivations and goals are, and why it is the next "big thing." Should we embrace it or fear it? Both, I daresay.
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I noticed the earlier posts, but what the hell...
Darius:Also, when using XML to describe how applications are supposed to talk to each other (through the web?), how does this relate to the .NET Framework and the CLR?
.NET as a platform (the CLR) has nothing to do with XML Web Services. ASP.NET is the provider of the services themselves. Creation of a .asmx web service allows you to surface methods which can be accessed using SOAP (XML), and does a bunch of the underlying communications work for you. This is taken care of largely in the Framework classes. If you want to know more, check out this web serviceshttp://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/Dn... and this <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cp... object refrence.
Darius:If the .NET Framework is inddeed a wrapper for the Win32 API, the how does Mono work? Does that just use the .NET Frameware as a wrapper aound X Windows fucntions ?
In Windows, some parts of the .NET Framework wrap GDI, as the Graphics Device Interface is the way Windows paints pixels on the screen. The CLR has nothing to do with GDI though, and .NET Framework implementations on other platforms (i.e. FreeBSD, MacOSX) will decidedly not use GDI to draw. To be clear: *any* code which creates a window on a windows box calls GDI at some point.