.NET Archive

This article by Prashant Sridharan provides an introduction and overview of Microsoft's four .NET programming languages: Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual J#. According to the author, programming languages are used to build a variety of solutions, and each language contains unique features and benefits that make it best suited to certain kinds of applications. The article starts by explaining the overall benefits of .NET, and then reviews the unique capabilities and strengths each of these four Microsoft .NET programming languages.

Learn to use the rich set of controls in the .NET Compact Framework, including the DataGrid control, the TreeView, and other advanced Windows controls. This sample chapter discusses reference types, the object-oriented features of C#, and exception handling.

Microsoft's pre-beta version of its Visual Studio .NET platform, "Whidbey", is offering a trove of new simplified tools and features that should make developers jobs easier, while giving Microsoft critics new fodder, attendees at the Professional Developers Conference here said. In the meantime, Microsoft Developer Tools Roadmap 2004-2005 were posted, and also the new CLR Profiler which allows developers to see the allocation profile of their manage applications.

SharpDevelop is an open-source (GPL) IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on the .NET platform (Mono port in the works). This 0.98 release has seen a complete rewrite of the text editor (it is now much faster), which also should be now much easier reuseable as a control in other applications. Also new by (very) popular request is the Tools/Options/Text Editor- Highlighting panel. It allows you to modify the syntax highlighting that is used inside #develop.

The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP2 Developer Redistributable includes the latest .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP2 CAB files for all supported processor types. On othe Microsoft releases, here is the Developer Power Toys for the Windows Mobile platform and the Windows CE Utilities for Visual Studio .NET 2003 add-on pack which enables Visual Studio to connect to devices running Windows CE 4.1 and later.

Learn the similarities and differences between Web application development using ASP.NET and classic desktop application development. This article is aimed toward Visual Basic 6.0 developers who are interested in getting started with creating ASP.NET Web applications, and examines the differences between creating desktop applications with Visual Basic 6.0 and creating ASP.NET Web applications with Visual Basic .NET.

Download the Microsoft .NET Passport 2.5 Software Development Kit (SDK), which includes Microsoft .NET Passport, a suite of Web-based services that helps make signing in to Web sites faster and easier. Also, DirectX 9.0 SDK Update (Summer 2003) - RC0 was released to beta testers.

When .NET launched, one of the most talked-about feature was rich metadata. But what does that mean to the day-to-day developer? Shawn Wildermuth discusses why understanding the way metadata can be used in your types can open up development avenues you never knew existed.

Microsoft is publishing a series of articles about .NET. Part 1 is entitled Application Planning and Design

ZDNet takes a look at Indigo, the next major version of Microsoft's web services platform, which is scheduled to be released concurrently with Longhorn, the next major Windows OS version. Indigo is believed to be aimed directly at enterprise-class web services platforms like the Java 2 Enterprise Edition ones from BEA and IBM.

The end of last month marked the third anniversary of Microsoft's launch of its .Net strategy, which executives such as Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said at the time was a "bet-the-company thing." But three years later, reactions are mixed as to whether that strategy, along with the vision that accompanied it, has played out as the Redmond, Wash., software developer had hoped.

Microsoft Corp’s .NET vision, once a confusing morass of marketing hype and technological buzzwords, is now a mature platform for the development and deployment of web-based applications which require inter-device connectivity, the company said.

The Microsoft Corporation is in the process of developing the next major version of the C# language. This article contains information regarding four key new features, including generics, iterators, anonymous methods, and partial types.

It's worth watching for, as indications are that X# would be used to treat XML as a first-class citizen in the .Net programming arena. Read the article at TechUpdate.