MCS Society .NET Tech Talk Series

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MCS Society.NET Tech Talk Series
What is .NET?

• Thursday, November 7th, 2002

Michael Dunn (mdunn_at_cs.drexel.edu) Drexel
University Student Ambassador to Microsoft
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Topics

• Introduction
• Basics
• Myths
• The technology
• Language Independence
• Operating System Independence
• Platform Independence
• Conclusions

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Introduction

• First in a series of .NET Technical Talks
  sponsored by Drexels Math and Computer Science
  Society.
• High level overview of .NET
• Future talks include much lower level discussion
• Please hold detailed questions till the end

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Basics (cont.)

• The motivation behind designing .NET was to
  enable easy creation of web services.
• C and the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI)
  are now international standards.
• Many highly successful brand name companies are
  early adopters of .NET

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Basics (cont.)

• Honeywell
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Bank of New York
• Accenture
• KPMG
• Scandinavian Airlines System
• Carnival Cruise Lines
• Credit Suisse First Boston
• Hewlett Packard
• Deutsche Bank
• Hitachi, Ltd.

• The Virgin Group
• USDA
• Coca-Cola Company
• FleetBoston Financial
• Continental Airlines
• Verizon
• Xerox
• Fidesic
• Expedia
• MSNBC
• NASDAQ
• Zagat Survey

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Basics (cont.)
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Myths

• .NET is yet another attempt by Microsoft to shut
  down Open Source
• .NET is a Microsoft technology
• .NET only works with Microsoft Windows
• .NET costs a lot of money
• By using .NET I am supporting Microsoft

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The technology

• Key concepts
• Language Independence
• Operating System Independence
• Platform Independence

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The technology (cont.)
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The technology (cont.) Language Independence

• Ada
• APL
• AsmL
• Basic (VB)
• C
• C
• C
• CAML (F)
• COBOL

Component Pascal ECMAScript (JScript) Eiffel Forth
Fortran (2) Haskell lcc Java (J) Mondrian
ML Mercury Oberon Oz Pascal Perl Python Scheme
SmallTalk
http//www.gotdotnet.com/team/lang/ for more info.
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The technology (cont.) Operating System
Independence

• Despite being designed by Microsoft, .NET was not
  created with one operating system in mind.
• A shared source CLI (SSCLI - codenamed ROTOR)
  is available for porting.

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The technology (cont.) Operating System
Independence (cont.)

• Ximian Mono
• http//www.go-mono.org
• GNUs dotGNU
• http//www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
• Since its an open standard, anyone can implement
  .NET for any operating system.

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The technology (cont.) Platform Independence

• Intermediate Language (IL) is converted into
  machine instructions by the CLR
• The CLR is part of the open standard, and can be
  implemented for just about any system architecture

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Conclusions

• .NET is (r)evolutionary
• .NET is not a be all end all solution for every
  programming project
• Just as (C ! ATT) (Java ! Sun) (.NET !
  Microsoft)
• Lots of exciting .NET services to come!