Satish Marwat Dot Net Web Resources satishcm@gmail.com3 Page
1.5 What tools can I use to develop .NET applications?
There are a number of tools, described here in ascending order of cost:
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The .NET Framework SDK is free and includes command-line compilersfor C++, C#, and VB.NET and various other utilities to aiddevelopment.
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ASP.NET Web Matrix is a free ASP.NET development environment fromMicrosoft. As well as a GUI development environment, the downloadincludes a simple web server that can be used instead of IIS to hostASP.NET apps. This opens up ASP.NET development to users of Windows XP Home Edition, which cannot run IIS.
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Microsoft Visual C# .NET Standard 2003 is a cheap (around $100)version of Visual Studio limited to one language and also with limitedwizard support. For example, there's no wizard support for classlibraries or custom UI controls. Useful for beginners to learn with, orfor savvy developers who can work around the deficiencies in thesupplied wizards. As well as C#, there are VB.NET and C++ versions.
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Microsoft Visual Studio.NET Professional 2003. If you have a license forVisual Studio 6.0, you can get the upgrade. You can also upgrade fromVS.NET 2002 for a token $30. Visual Studio.NET includes support forall the MS languages (C#, C++, VB.NET) and has extensive wizardsupport.At the top end of the price spectrum are the Visual Studio.NET 2003Enterprise and Enterprise Architect editions. These offer extra features suchas Visual Sourcesafe (version control), and performance and analysis tools.Check out the Visual Studio.NET Feature Comparison athttp://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/howtobuy/choosing.asp
Terminology
2.1 What is the CLI? Is it the same as the CLR?
The CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) is the definition of the fundamentals of the .NET framework - the Common Type System (CTS), metadata, the VirtualExecution Environment (VES) and its use of intermediate language (IL), and thesupport of multiple programming languages via the Common Language Specification(CLS). The CLI is documented through ECMA - seehttp://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ecma/ for more details.The CLR (Common Language Runtime) is Microsoft's primary
implementation
of theCLI. Microsoft also have a shared source implementation known as ROTOR, foreducational purposes, as well as
the .NET Compact Framework for mobile devices.Non-Microsoft CLI implementations include Mono and DotGNU Portable. NET.