.NET Archive

Microsoft on Tuesday said that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in April will certify Microsoft's programming language C# (pronounced C sharp) and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), which is underlying software "plumbing" that can run applications written in different programming languages.

Microsoft aims to entice solution providers to develop applications for Pocket PCs and Smartphones using its .Net Compact Framework, said Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates last week. "The sky is the limit," Gates said in his keynote address at the first U.S. Microsoft Mobility Developer conference, held here in tandem with the CTIA expo.

Microsoft recently announced the release of a scaled-down version of the .Net runtime meant for mobile devices. What will you find in the .Net Compact Framework though?

Borland Software has licensed a key piece of Microsoft's .Net software and will build a new line of programming tools for .Net later this year, the companies announced Monday.

In the server OS market, Microsoft is dominant, and it wants to stay that way. With the coming release of Microsoft Windows .NET Server 2003, an upgrade from Windows 2000 Server, the company feels it can keep the competition comfortably behind. Read the article at PCMagazine.

"The first version of ASP.NET, along with its integration into Visual Studio .NET, is fantastic on almost all counts. Indeed, when compared to most other version 1 products that hit the market (especially from Microsoft), ASP.NET shines bright. A few things were left out,though, or don't work as well as they should. As the self-appointed pain in Microsoft's ass, it's my job to point some of them out. Here is a list of twelve issues that Microsoft needs to address for ASP.NET 2.0" Read the article at AngryCoder.

The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is the ECMA standard that describes the core of the .NET Framework world. The Shared Source CLI is a compressed archive of the source code to a working implementation of the ECMA CLI and the ECMA C# language specification. This implementation builds and runs on Windows XP, the FreeBSD operating system, and Mac OS X 10.2. It is released under a shared source initiative.

"With over 9,000 files, and including some 1300 public classes to pore through, the Shared Source CLI can teach you quite a bit about the internal workings of the CLR. But the sheer amount of source code included can make just starting your exploration a monumental task. This article discusses some of the things you can learn from the source code facsimile of the CLR, like how JIT compilation works. It will also help you understand how to control execution along with debugging and loading classes. A walk through the steps involved in setting up the runtime will let you become familiar with the process." Read the article at MSDN, a reprint from June's NetMagazine printed article.

Microsoft and its allies have quietly expanded an effort to gain acceptance for C#, the software giant's competitor to Java and a foundation for its next-generation Internet services. Read the report at CNet.

Microsoft released new beta versions of their programming .NET tools, including the .NET Framework and SDK 1.1 Beta and Visual J# Redistributable Package 1.1 Beta.

"Much has been written about the virtues of .Net. But as Builder.com's Lamont Adams pointed out in a recent article, "I'm confused...What is '.Net' anyway?," the developer world is a long way from adopting .Net as the de facto standard for development tools." Read the editorial at ZDNews. Another related .Net article is to be found at ZDNews: "Why .NET will benefit other platforms".

".NET clearly bears a strong resemblance to Java. It offers many of the same features, while adding interesting additions of its own (code metadata, versioned assemblies, etc). Microsoft, however, is better positioned to create a cross-market software unification framework than Sun Microsystems ever was (or is). This will result in a rapid expansion in .NET's popularity which eats into Java's market share as it grows to take over the development world." Read the editorial at ZDNet.

The prospect that a vital element of Microsoft's .NET will debut in a Java IDE has come a step closer. A plug-in that connects Microsoft's Corp's C Sharp programming language with the Eclipse Framework has been built by Puteaux, France-based Improve SA. Eclipse is built in Java's Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT). Read the report at TheRegister.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has said that building the company's .Net software architecture is more difficult than "getting to the moon or designing the 747. Read about it at News.com.