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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
June 7, 2009
Q.
What is the .NET Framework?
A.
.NET
Framework is something like a runtime module
that has evolved from the old BASIC
programming language. In its current state
it is a software framework that is installed
on Windows operating systems that provides
the atmosphere for
programs written in Visual Basic (VB) or
Visual C++ (MSVC) to run.
Note: The
phrase "run a program" comes from the BASIC
command "run" which was typed in to initiate
a BASIC program that had been loaded in
memory.
The
framework
consists
of
Libraries that provide a large range of
features including user interface, data and
data access, database connectivity,
cryptography, web application development,
numeric algorithms, and network
communications. The class library is used by
programmers, who combine it with their own
code to produce applications. It is used by most new applications created for
the Windows platform.
In computer programming, BASIC (Beginner's
All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a
family of high-level programming languages.
The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by
John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz
at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, USA to
provide computer access to non-science
students.
At that time,
nearly all use of computers required writing
custom software, which was something only
scientists and mathematicians tended to be
able to do. The language and its variants
became widespread on microcomputers in the
late 1970s and 1980s.
BASIC remains
popular to this day in a handful of highly
modified dialects and new languages
influenced by BASIC such as Microsoft Visual
Basic. As of 2006, 59% of developers for the
.NET platform used Visual Basic as their
only language.
In the
early days, the full BASIC program had to be
installed on a computer in order for it to
be able to run a program written in BASIC.
BASIC in the form of BASICA or QBASIC was
included with all versions of Microsoft DOS
through DOS 6. BASIC was most likely one of
the first programming languages learned and
may still be the one known by most of the
older programmers.
With the
introduction of Visual Basic in Windows 95,
the complete BASIC program was no longer required.
It was replaced with an early form of a
framework known as a runtime module called
vbrunX00.dll, where the X was the particular
version of Visual Basic. This runtime module
formed the environment that contained the necessary
components to allow programs written in
Visual Basic to work without the complete
BASIC program being installed.
Pretty
much after Visual Basic V6's vbrun600.dll,
the name was changed to Visual Basic.NET,
shortened to VB.NET, then to .NET, and
currently the .NET Framework. Along the way
many things were added and modified, but for
easier understanding, this transition is
close enough.
.NET
Framework V3 is installed with Windows Vista
and as
of this
writing, the current released version of the
.NET Framework is V3.5-SP1. (V4 is in beta).
It and previous versions can also be
installed on XP by an application requiring it
or by user choice.
Once
installed however, security updates to all
versions are included in the normal
Microsoft update cycle. Because of the way
some programs are written, later versions of
the framework do not always fully replace
the previous versions, so it would not be
uncommon for Versions 1.1, 2.0 and 3.5 to
coexist on the same computer.
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