Author: Matt Taylor
Date: 10:08:31 02/24/03
Go up one level in this thread
On February 24, 2003 at 12:16:32, Brian Kostick wrote: >My daughter showed me a message asking: > >>.NET Framework > >"Just a quick question, what is this really? And why would one need it. What can >possibly be there that makes it not work if one does not install it? I really >don't see the point nor like having to install all sort of "new" Windows stuff >just to run programs. No offense to anyone but seems mostly like either some >sort of laziness or "fancy new stuff, I want to use it just because of that". So >really, what special things can I do with it that I can't do otherwise?" > > >http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d7158dee-a83f-4e21-b05a-009d06457787&DisplayLang=en > > >Of course she will also ask her instructors but I really don't even have a clue >for her. If anyone developing under the framework has commentary it would be >appreciated. BK Ask her why anyone would want to program in Java. If you want to run Java programs, you have to download the runtimes. (Fortunately they were included in older versions of Windows.) .NET is part of Microsoft's answer to Java, but it has a much broader scope. Rather than simply being a cross-platform language, .NET is a cross-platform environment that supports many languages. It has much better performance than Java does. I have never done .NET development, but a friend of mine recompiled a pi calculator he wrote in C++ using .NET and it was about 25% faster than native code. (It has something to do with fast memory allocation.) The other part of Microsoft's answer to Java is C#. I have not written code in C#, but from what I have heard I would like C# much better than Java. Microsoft has many of the same gripes as I do with Java. In essense, .NET is a runtime environment. Programs that use .NET are going to want that runtime environment. If she doesn't run anything that uses .NET, she doesn't have to worry about it. -Matt
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.