While I'm working in Redmond, I will probably need to learn about Microsoft's .NET framework. Today I will describe what .NET is from my limited knowledge. The .NET framework is a set of tools and services that allow software developers to rapidly develop new applications. This is useful because many applications have similar requirements, like reading and writing files to disk, retrieving information off the internet, or displaying information in a window to name a few. With these tools already available, the application programmer does not have to expend time and effort in writing these tools from scratch, and testing them to ensure reliability.
The .NET framework is reminiscent of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which allows computers to run any Java program on any computer on which a JRE has been installed. Since there are implementations of the JRE on almost every popular platform (Windows, Mac, Linux), Java programs are considered to be platform independent. One big difference between the JRE and the .NET framework is that the .NET framework is not implemented on all platforms. Microsoft only has developed implementation of .NET on the various Windows operating systems, but not for any other. An open source implementation of .NET for Linux is in progress, called Mono, but at this point is not 100% completed. Due to this limitation, the .NET framework is not considered to be platform independent, but Windows specific.
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