Module 1: Overview of the Microsoft .NET Framework

Objectives After completing this module, students should be able to: Differentiate between Microsoft.NET and the .NET Framework List the benefits of using .NET, based on the perspective of the problems that .NET solves.

Lesson: Introduction to the .NET Framework What is .NET Framework? What Problems Does .NET Solve? The .NET Framework Components Benefits of Using the .NET Framework Visual Studio .NET: The Tool for .NET Development

What is the .NET Framework? Developer Tools Clients User Experiences ASP.NET Web Applications XML Web Services Databases .NET Framework

The .NET Framework .NET: Microsoft’s development model in which software becomes platform and device-independent, and data becomes available over the Internet. .NET Platform: i. A platform that can be used for building and running the next gen. of Ms Windows and Web applications. ii. Goal: To simplify Web development iii Consists of (4): a. The .NET Framework b. The .NET Enterprise Servers c. Building block services d. Visual Studio.NET

The .NET Platform (cont.) iv It spans clients, servers and services, and it consists of: a. A programming model that enables developers to build Extensible Markup Language(XML) Web services and applications. b. A set of buliding block services that are user centric set of XML Web services that move control of user data from applications to users. Eg: Ms Passport ( use to integrate various applications) c. A set of .NET Enterprise Servers (incl. WIndows2000, Ms SQL Server, Ms BizTalk Server) that integrate, run, operate and manage XML Web services and applications. d. Client Software (eg: Windows XP and Windows CE) which helps developers deliver a comprehensive user experience across a family or devices. e. Tools (eg: Visual Studio.NET) which can be used to develop XML Web services and Windows and Web applications for an enriched user experience.

The .NET Framework It provides the foundation upon which applications and XML Web services are built and executed. The unified nature of .NET framework means that all applications, whether they are Windows apps, Web apps or XML Web services, are developed by using a common set of tools and code, and are easily integrated with one another. It consists of: a. The common language runtime: Handles runtime services, including language integration, security and memory mgmt. During development, the runtime provides features that are needed to simplify development. b. Class libraries: Provide reusable code for most common tasks, incl. data access, XML Web services development, and Web and Windows Forms.

What Problems Does .NET Solve? Even with the Internet, most applications and devices have trouble communicating with each other. This limitation leads to two major problems that the developers must confront: Programmers end up writing infrastructure instead of applications Programmers have had to limit their scope or continually learn new languages

What Problems Does .NET Solve? (cont.) The .NET solves the problems by : a. providing The runtime, which is language-independent and platform-independent. Language-independent in .NET allows developers to build an application in any .NET based language and know that the Web App. will work on any client that supports .NET. The runtime also controls much of the application infrastructure so that developers can concentrate on the app-specific logic.

What Problems Does .NET Solve? (cont.) b. making use of the industry-standard XML: XML Web services use XML to send data, thereby ensuring that any XML-capable client can receive that data. Since XML is an open std, most modern clients (eg: computer OSs, cellular phones, PDAs, game consoles ) can accept XML data.

The .NET Framework Components Win32 Message Queuing COM+ (Transactions, Partitions, Object Pooling) IIS WMI Common Language Runtime .NET Framework Class Library ADO.NET and XML XML Web Services User Interface Visual Basic C++ C# ASP.NET Perl Python …

The .NET Framework Components( cont. ) The .NET Framework consists of diff. components that help to build and run .NET-based apps: Platform Substrate: The .NET Framework must run on an OS. Currently, it is built to run on the Ms Win 32 OSs (eg: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 98). Application Services: When running on Windows 2000, app. services such as Component Services, Message Queuing, Internet Information Services(IIS), and Windows Management Instrumentation(WMI) are available to the developers. The .NET Framework exposes application services through classes in the .NET Framework class library.

The .NET Framework Components( cont. ) .NET Framework Class Library It exposes features of the runtime and simplifies the development of .NET-based apps. The developers also can extend classes by creating their own libraries of classes. It implements the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime Also referred as a managed environment in which common services such as garbage collection and security are automatically provided. Microsoft ADO.NET The next gen.of Ms ActiveX Data Objects. Provides extensive XML support.

The .NET Framework Components( cont. ) ASP.NET A programming framework that is built on the common language runtime. It can be used to build powerful Web app. ASP.NET Web Forms provide an easy and powerful way to build dynamic Web user interfaces. XML Web Services A programmable Web components that can be shared among apps on the Internet or the Intranet. User Interfaces The .NET Framework support 3 types of UIs: a. Web Form b. Windows Forms c. The Command Console Languages Any language that conforms to the Common Language Specification(CLS) can run with the common language runtime.( Eg: VB.NET, C++.NET, Jscript.NET)

Benefits of Using the .NET Framework Based on Web standards and practices The .NET Framework fully supports existing Internet Technology. Windows API ASP .NET Framework 1980’s 1990’s 2000’s Visual Basic MFC/ATL

Benefits of Using the .NET Framework(cont.) Designed using unified app models Functionality of .NET classes is universally available The functionality of .NET class is available from any .NET-compatible language or programming model. Therefore the same piece of code can be used by Windows apps, Web apps and XML Web services. Easy for developers to use. Code is organized into hierarchical namespaces and classes It can be used by any.NET app written in any .Net based language. Extensible classes The hierarchy of the .NET Framework is not hidden from the developer. You can access and extend .NET classes(unless they are protected) through inheritance. You can also implement cross-language inheritance.

Visual Studio .NET: The Tool for .NET Development Windows Forms Tools Web Forms Tools Error Handling Data Access Multiple Languages Web Services Tools Develop Debug Deploy Design

Lesson: Overview of ASP.NET What is ASP.NET? ASP.NET Web Application Multimedia: ASP.NET Execution Model

What is ASP.NET? Evolutionary, more flexible successor to Active Server Pages - content-rich, dynamic and personalized web sites. Dynamic Web pages that can access server resources - An ASP.NET web application comprises one or more web forms. A web form is the Web page that users view in browser.

What is ASP.NET? Server-side processing of Web Forms ASP.NET web forms run server side code to access database, generate additional web forms and to take advantage of built-in security on the server. It can be viewed on any device that has Internet access and a Web browser. XML Web services let you create distributed Web applications XML Web Services are distributed applications that use XML for transferring info. Between clients, applications and other XML Web Services Browser-independent Language-independent

ASP.NET Web Application XML Data Database Internet Page1. aspx Page2. aspx Web Services Components Web Forms Code-behind pages global. asax Web. config machine. config ASP.NET Web Server Output Cache Clients

Multimedia: ASP.NET Execution Model

First Request: Set of events that take place The client browser issues a GET HTTP request to the server. The ASP.NET parser interprets the source code. If the code was not already compiled into a DLL, ASP.NET invokes the compiler. Runtime loads and executes the MSIL code.

Second Request : Set of events that take place The client browser issues a GET HTTP request to the server. Runtime loads and immediately executes the MSIL code that was already compiled during the user’s first access attempt.

Review Introduction to the .NET Framework Overview of ASP.NET ~ The End ~