Microsoft's
.NET is a collection of new technologies that are change Windows-based software
development. A major theme of .NET is the idea of Web services, allowing software
to communicate directly with other software using Internet technologies. The .NET
Framework and Visual Studio.NET, two more core aspects of this initiative,
provide a multi-language environment in which developers can create Web
services and other kinds of applications.
Microsoft
views .NET as a vision, a platform for the digital future. A more concrete and
equally accurate way to think about this new initiative is to understand that
".NET is a
brand, one that Microsoft has applied to several different technologies. Some
of these technologies are entirely new, providing new services and new
possibilities. Others allow an updated approach to creating new kinds of
Windows applications".
Still other
parts of the .NET family are just new releases of existing technologies dressed
up with the .NET brand.
Evolving Programming Models
Developers have seen a number of changes in the way they are supposed to
create their software on Microsoft platforms. Over the years, different
programming models for inter-process or inter-module communication have
received attention:
§
Dynamic
Data Exchange (DDE),
§
Remote
Procedure Call (RPC),
§
OLE
Technology (OLE),
§
Component
Object Model (COM),
§
Distributed
COM (DCOM),
§
Microsoft
Transaction Server (MTS),
§
COM+
Component Services.
With the arrival of .NET, things
are about to change again. This is due to a number of reasons. Very important
factor is the growing importance of the Web and the various mobile devices. As
a result, the approach you will undertake to develop your software will shift
more and more towards a true Object-Oriented
Programming (OOP) and Component
Based Development (CBD) in a Service-Oriented model.
Figure 1.1
Why do we need this change? What is this new kind of programming model?
How did we get there? How does the .NET Framework help us in building
applications using this new programming model? Let us try to answer those
questions now.
In the
beginning 1998, a team of developers at Microsoft had finished work on a new
version of Internet Information Server (IIS), including several new features in
Active Sever Page (ASP) while developers were excited to see new capabilities
for Internet development on Win NT; the development team had many ideas for its
improvement. That team began to work on a new architecture implementing those
ideas. This project ultimately came to be known as Next Generation Windows
Service (NGWS).
NGWS - Next Generation Windows
Services
Before the official announcement of
.NET, the term NGWS was used for Microsoft's plans for producing an
"Internet-based platform of Next Generation Windows Services".
After VS 6.0 was released in late
1998, work on the next version of visual studio (then called visual studio 7.0)
was lined into NGWS. The COM+/MTS
(Microsoft Transaction Server) team brought in their work on a universal runtime for all the
language in VS, which they planned to make available for third party language
as well. The concepts in .Net draw inspiration from many sources. Previous
architecture, from p-code is Pascal up through the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Microsoft has been taken many of the best ideas in the industry, combined with
some ideas of their own & brought them all into one coherent package .NET.
Microsoft's
.NET is a collection of new technologies that are change Windows-based software
development. A major theme of .NET is the idea of Web services, allowing software
to communicate directly with other software using Internet technologies. The .NET
Framework and Visual Studio.NET, two more core aspects of this initiative,
provide a multi-language environment in which developers can create Web
services and other kinds of applications.
Microsoft
views .NET as a vision, a platform for the digital future. A more concrete and
equally accurate way to think about this new initiative is to understand that
".NET is a
brand, one that Microsoft has applied to several different technologies. Some
of these technologies are entirely new, providing new services and new
possibilities. Others allow an updated approach to creating new kinds of
Windows applications".
Still other
parts of the .NET family are just new releases of existing technologies dressed
up with the .NET brand.
Evolving Programming Models
Developers have seen a number of changes in the way they are supposed to
create their software on Microsoft platforms. Over the years, different
programming models for inter-process or inter-module communication have
received attention:
§
Dynamic
Data Exchange (DDE),
§
Remote
Procedure Call (RPC),
§
OLE
Technology (OLE),
§
Component
Object Model (COM),
§
Distributed
COM (DCOM),
§
Microsoft
Transaction Server (MTS),
§
COM+
Component Services.
With the arrival of .NET, things
are about to change again. This is due to a number of reasons. Very important
factor is the growing importance of the Web and the various mobile devices. As
a result, the approach you will undertake to develop your software will shift
more and more towards a true Object-Oriented
Programming (OOP) and Component
Based Development (CBD) in a Service-Oriented model.
Figure 1.1
Why do we need this change? What is this new kind of programming model?
How did we get there? How does the .NET Framework help us in building
applications using this new programming model? Let us try to answer those
questions now.
In the
beginning 1998, a team of developers at Microsoft had finished work on a new
version of Internet Information Server (IIS), including several new features in
Active Sever Page (ASP) while developers were excited to see new capabilities
for Internet development on Win NT; the development team had many ideas for its
improvement. That team began to work on a new architecture implementing those
ideas. This project ultimately came to be known as Next Generation Windows
Service (NGWS).
NGWS - Next Generation Windows
Services
Before the official announcement of
.NET, the term NGWS was used for Microsoft's plans for producing an
"Internet-based platform of Next Generation Windows Services".
After VS 6.0 was released in late
1998, work on the next version of visual studio (then called visual studio 7.0)
was lined into NGWS. The COM+/MTS
(Microsoft Transaction Server) team brought in their work on a universal runtime for all the
language in VS, which they planned to make available for third party language
as well. The concepts in .Net draw inspiration from many sources. Previous
architecture, from p-code is Pascal up through the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Microsoft has been taken many of the best ideas in the industry, combined with
some ideas of their own & brought them all into one coherent package .NET.