Introduction to .NET Framework

Editor's Notes

• #6: The .NET framework exposes numerous classes to the developer. These classes allow the development of rich client applications and Web based applications alike. In the above slide these classes have been divided into 4 areas. ASP.NET provides the core Web infrastructure such as Web Forms for UI based development and Web Services for programmatic interface development, User interface development on the Windows platform can be done using Windows Forms ADO.NET and XML provide the functionality for data access. Finally, the core base classes provide infrastructure services such as security, transaction management etc.
• #7: Common Language Runtime Common, secure execution environment. We’ll drill into this in some detail in the first parts of the presentation. Windows ® forms Framework for building rich clients A demonstration will highlight some of these features, such as the delegate-based event model. ASP.NET Web forms Manageable code (non spaghetti) Logical evolution of ASP (compiled) Again, we’ll drill into a hint at the power of Web Forms with a demonstration Web Services Programming the Internet to leverage the "power at the edge of the cloud". We will cover this in detail, as this – along with the CLR – is one of the more powerful aspects of .NET Framework. ADO.NET, evolution of ADO New objects (e.g., DataSets, Datareader) Visual Studio.NET Most productive development environment gets better and fully supports the .NET Framework
• #16: The first incarnation of ASP proved very successful. As part of the .NET Framework, Microsoft support ASP.NET. ASP.NET is a logical evolution of ASP, but addresses many of the issues associated with ASP. ASP.NET is now compiled and not interpreted. A great deal of work has also been done to make sure that ASP.NET development becomes cleaner and more productive.
• #17: The Web Form is basically an ASP.NET file (.ASPX) that makes use of the new features of ASP.NET. ASP.NET in conjunction with Web Forms eliminate a number of the traditional problems associated with ASP. ASP.NET provides the developer with the option of separating the code from the UI elements using ‘code-behind’ forms. Using such a mechanism will also make Form tools much easier to develop. ASP.NET also conquers one of the annoying side effects of using ASP – state. Imagine that a user has filled in an ASP generated form and then hits the submit button. At this stage IIS (server side) will regenerate the form and as a side effect all the information that the user entered into the form will be erased. In many situations this is unacceptable, and many an ASP developer has struggled to find work arounds (most of which may not be considered elegant). Fortunately, ASP.NET allows controls to maintain state. ASP.NET supports a number of new rich server controls. These controls can be used to improve data connectivity (data bound controls) and data validation.
• #18: Technically a Web Service is “ A programmable application component accessible via standard Web protocols”. In other words, it’s a component that can be called remotely, over the internet, from a client application. Take our previous example of a Web application that required ‘stock information’. This Web application possibly would not have that information readily at hand. However, what if another Web application (possibly on another machine, on the other side of the planet) did? Further more what if this remote machine exposed a component with a method such as ‘GetStockPrice (string strCompanyName)’ . Surely this would make life much easier, making separate Web sites act like ‘one big application’. Web service consumers can send and receive messages using XML, and therefore the audience of clients is unlimited.