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History of .NET

How was C# created?​

  • Gates's Vision: Uncouple the language from the machine
  • "First we shape of tools, then the tools shape us."
  • Runtimes in the 90s:
  • Libraries in the 90s:
  • Base class libraries in the 90s:

What is .NET?​

  • .NET is a server-side platform
    • Originally released as ASP.NET Web Forms --> GUI interface with event model to build websites
      • Causes release of .NET Framework MVC because devs want more testability, plus better control over generated html and server state
    • C# / F# / VB is converted to a Compiled Intermediate Language (CIL)
    • Just-In-Time compiler converts CIL to machine code
    • Language =/= Framework. Different versions of languages have different compatibilities with .NET.
  • What does .NET solve?
    • "It's windows all the way down" --> Why do we care?
  • .NET Framework stopped at 4.8
    • Abstraction layer that was replaced by .NET Core which is now called .NET
  • Why was the .NET Core framework created --> Reinventing .NET
    • Compilation /workload began to take too long due to too much added to the framework
    • Uses a different abstraction layer but has the same intermediate compiled languages
    • Think of .net core as a different abstraction layer that compiles into the same intermediate language
    • .NET Core was invented in response to modern development trends such as cloud deployments, client side applications and cross-platform support. It evolved from the original .NET Framework which just supported the microsoft windows ecosystem
    • TODO: Evolution of .NET to .NET 7
    • TODO: Introduction of .NET standard
      Versions

      Versions of .NET Core after 5 are simply called .NET

  • .NET Standard bridges the gap of ??? --> Replaced by .NET 5.0
    • Unity
    • ^ Does it bridge all these into one abstraction layer?
  • .NET 6.0 collapses above abstraction layers into one ???
  • Xamarin : platform for developing native mobile applications using .NET
    • Is this a pokemon? It evolved into .NET MAUI
  • Mono : Open source implementation of .NET DEAD
  • ASP.NET: Web application framework related to .NET

History lessons from .NET​

  • Java was invented in 1995 as a platform independent language
  • .NET Framework was invented in 2002 to fit the microsoft ecosystem. They are competitors
  • Modern .NET is platform independent, especially given IaaS services that virtualise the operating system
    • Windows-specific features can be enabled with a Compatability Pack in .NET 5+
    • .NET runtimes can be deployed using self-contained deployments (SCD) to computers which don't have .NET installed
    • Previously relied on Windows IIS for webserver hosting which has been replaced by Kestrel (cross-platform webserver)
  • .NET was invented as a comprehensive development platform for windows applications and web services
  • Why was .NET invented with Just-in-time (JIT) compilation?
    • Performance optimization: Runtime information allows the compiler to make optimizations based on the specific execution context. It can be highly optimized for target hardware compared to static compilation.
      • E.G Choosing SSE2 vector CPU instructions when the CPU supports them
      • System collects statistics about how the program is actually running in the environment, it can therefore recompile for optimal performance
      • Global code optimizations without losing the advantages of dynamic linking and without the overheads inherent to static compilers and linkers
  • Why is .NET still around?
    • It's now cross-platform, there's an active open-source community and it's still supported by microsoft with integrations with microsoft products
  • XAML : Declarative markup language for creating the UI for a .NET app
  • Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) : framework for building service-oriented applications
    • TODO: Examine in more detail

.NET Myths Dispelled​

  • TODO:

What questions did I ask?​

  • What is the history of platform independent code?
    • How does Java relate to .NET?
  • Are operating systems just part of the "plumbing" now?
    • is this the idea of IaaS
  • Why was .NET invented?
    • What problem was Just-in-time compilation solving?
    • Why did it survive? Why is it still supported?
    • Is .NET serverside or clientside? Yes. .NET is a serverside MVC framework.
    • Does .NET support unity??
  • Why is javascript interpreted?
    • Must run on multiple platforms --> Cannot be compiled to native machine code because it needs to run on many platforms
    • Must be embeddable in HTML pages --> Needs to dynamically handle events & callbacks from HTML elements so it needs to be interpreted unless you compile the entire webpage
  • What is a modern services dev?
    • WebAPI?
    • Microservices?
  • Web developers are used to lousy tools...
  • What is XAML?
  • What is WCF?

What questions did other people ask?​

What sounds interesting?​