Features of .NET

<< Microsoft .NET Compact Framework | Automatic memory management >>

its own set of underlying standards and markup. MMIT shields these
details from the developer and allows `uniform code' for any target
device. Based on the capabilities of target device the output is rendered.

More information about MMIT can be obtained from

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/device/mitdefault.asp

1.3 Features of .NET

Now that we know some basics of .NET, let us see what makes .NET a wonderful
platform for developing modern applications.

Rich Functionality out of the box

.NET framework provides a rich set of functionality out of the box. It contains
hundreds of classes that provide variety of functionality ready to use in your
applications. This means that as a developer you need not go into low level details
of many operations such as file IO, network communication and so on.

Easy development of web applications

ASP.NET is a technology available on .NET platform for developing dynamic
and data driven web applications. ASP.NET provides an event driven
programming model (similar to Visual Basic 6 that simplify development of web
pages (now called as web forms) with complex user interface. ASP.NET server
controls provide advanced user interface elements (like calendar and grids) that
save lot of coding from programmer's side.

OOPs Support

The advantages of Object Oriented programming are well known. .NET provides
a fully object oriented environment. The philosophy of .NET is "Object is
mother of all." Languages like Visual Basic.NET now support many of the OO
features that were lacking traditionally. Even primitive types like integer and
characters can be treated as objects something not available even in OO
languages like C++.

Multi-Language Support

Generally enterprises have varying skill sets. For example, a company might have
people with skills in Visual Basic, C++, and Java etc. It is an experience that
whenever a new language or environment is invented existing skills are outdated.
This naturally increases cost of training and learning curve. .NET provides
something attractive in this area. It supports multiple languages. This means that
if you have skills in C++, you need not throw them but just mould them to suit
.NET environment. Currently four languages are available right out of the box
namely Visual Basic.NET, C# (pronounced as C-sharp), Jscript.NET and