.NET Framework Forces Decisions

The second betas of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET provide organizations with the tools that they need to evaluate the .NET Framework’s suitability for future application development. The .NET Framework supports Microsoft’s .NET vision—a vision that describes a new generation of highly integrated and distributed applications and XML Web services for personal computers and smart devices. More importantly, the .NET Framework addresses longstanding problems with application development for the Windows platform. Like the competing Java platform, the .NET Framework promises to eliminate many common bugs, remove much of the drudgery of creating and using software components, and simplify a confusing array of application programming interfaces (APIs) and programming languages. However, developing applications with the .NET Framework means making a commitment to run those applications on Microsoft operating systems.

What is the .NET Framework?

The .NET Framework is a software layer for application development and execution that resides on top of the Windows operating system (OS). This article focuses on two central elements of this layer: