Important Parts of the .net Platform - Essay Example

The CLR is the foundation of the .NET framework. CLR acts as a virtual machine, providing an execution environment for the programs. The programmer can use Visual Basic, Jscript, and C # to write codes and the CLR manages the code written in these different languages at execution time. The other important features provided by CLR are memory management, thread management, garbage collection, exception handling, and security.

Residing above the operating system, it acts as a buffer for the programmer and handles and manages the execution of the applications without the programmer having to counter the technicalities and complexities of the operating system.

On compilation of our programs using any of the .NET compatible high-level languages, it does not get directly converted into the executable binary code but has to pass through an intermediate conversion state called MSIL or IL. This is done because IL is comprehensible by the CLR. Also that this IL makes the comparison and interoperability between codes of different high-level languages possible as all the .NET compliant languages produce similar IL code. When the programmer decides to execute the program, the IL is converted to a binary code called native code.

To almost every developer, the IL serves an important purpose. Going through the IL for an application can give the programmer a feel of how the CLR is executing the code that can assist in tracking problems.

Every programmer craves access to some form of reusable code for common, usual tasks that he has got tired of writing again and again. With a collection of some 2,500 reusable classes to assist developers in building applications, the Framework Class Library offers just that. Common functions like string manipulation, common data structures, IO, Streams, Threads, web programming, etc. make it the largest library ever offered with any other programming language or environment.

The CLR, IL, and FCL prove to be the three most important components of the .NET platform. The CLR and FCL give the programmer everything he needs to build his applications. These two components make the .NET platform what it is by providing buffering between the developer and the operating system and the vast amount of reusable code for efficient application development and at the same time providing important services such as security mechanisms, memory management, and exception handling. The feature of IL on the other hand gives the programmer interoperability between the codes developed using different high-level languages and overviews for error detection.