can someone explain to me the relationship between Visual Studio and .NET?

[ZippyDan]

I haven't worked with any MS Visual apps for years, and even then it was only briefly.

My understanding was that there were several Visual programming flavors of generic languages (C++, Basic, etc.) and that "Studio" simply was a packaging of all of the main flavors together. Thought of another way: Visual Studio was a Microsoft standardized way of developing/programming, and you could plug-in different languages that were tweaked to work with that standard.

Now there is this new .NET Framework, which I believe includes C.NET and Basic.NET.

I can also buy Visual Studio 2008.

I can also buy Visual Studio .NET.

If .NET languages are again a new MS standard of various languages, then is is VS .NET simply a packaging of all the main .NET languages with the Visual Studio program?

The reason I am asking this is because I am doing a research project that requires me to classify what "platforms" are supported by particular software developers and their applications. Some of them specify that they support Visual Studio and some of them say they support .NET. Others specify Visual Studio .NET. These days, does one imply the other? Or is it important to differentiate Visual Studio support with .NET support?

 

[VinylxScratches]

You can't buy Visual Studio .NET, that's just the .NET environment, you can actually download this to your Windows XP machine to allow you to use .NET based software. Visual Studio 2008 is the IDE.

 

[ZippyDan]

The reason I am asking this is because I am doing a research project that requires me to classify what "platforms" are supported by particular software developers and their applications. Some of them specify that they support Visual Studio and some of them say they support .NET. Others specify Visual Studio .NET. These days, does one imply the other? Or is it important to differentiate Visual Studio support with .NET support?

 

[KLin]

Visual Studio is an integrated development environment(AKA IDE) application.

.net is a software framework

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_framework


Visual Studio .NET usually refers to version 2003. They took out ".Net" for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio

 

[nickbits]

Listing Visual Studio would be similar to a writer listing Microsoft Word. It doesn't really tell you anything.

 

[Ken g6]

I see. What you probably want to specify is the version of the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR, that's what Microsoft calls a virtual machine) that applications are or can be built on. Visual Studio 2008 uses CLR V3.5, last I looked.

 

[ZippyDan]

Well I have to make certain assumptions in this project. We have a category for .NET (the runtime version doesn't matter.) What I'm wondering is if it would be valid to make the assumptive leap from "supports Visual Studio" (which seems overly generic and vague as you have pointed out) to classification as supports .NET. It would seem the answer would be no. I also see several that list support for VS 05 and VS 08... does that make it any easier to make the leap?

 

[MrChad]

Each version of Visual Studio generally corresponds to a particular version of the .NET Framework (or CLR).

Visual Studio .NET (aka Visual Studio .NET 2002) -> .NET Framework 1.0
Visual Studio .NET 2003 -> .NET Framework 1.1
Visual Studio 2005 -> .NET Framework 2.0

Visual Studio 2008 supported multiple versions of the Framework, including 3.5, 3.0 and 2.0.

 

[ZippyDan]

assumptions i would like to make

1. if they say "Visual Studio" they probably are referring to a relatively recent version... so I can assume 2002 or newer
2. if they say or I can assume a recent version of Visual Studio then I can assume they support .NET (I assume with a new version of VS you could program in VC++, but if you are using a newer version I would think .NET is the "in thing" to do especially in reference to Windows Mobile devices which is what my project is focusing on.)

My job is not on the line if these assumptions are wrong, I just need it to be right 85 to 90% of the time

 

[sao123]

Visual Studio is the microsoft IDE or Integrated Development Environment. This is the collection of software and tools which allows for writing and debugging software. The IDE allos the coder to develop applications in usually C++, Visual Basic, and C#. Previously other languages were supported such as J++, J#, Visual fox Pro,...

.Net framework is a collection of application programming interfaces (API) (which defines all the window types, controls - text boxes, menus, radial boxes, check boxes, excel grid)etc), which lays the foundation of objects which you can use inside your code. If you consider the original API Win32API which windows 3.1 and 95/98 were built on. Unfortunately, since Win32API was C based, it was not object oriented, and was very difficult for programmers to use. Eventually the MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) was written, which was a new Object Oriented API which was much easier to program with. Finally, after managed memory coade came about, the next logical extension was a managed version of the MFC, known as .Net 1.0. Newer revisions of .Net 2.0 and 3.5 added several new window types, control types and other objects, which were created in newer rounds of Microsoft software (XP, Vista ,2005, 2008, etc) to the API.

With the creation of .Net, all microsoft languages are compiled into a common language runtime (CLR) which is then compiled into machine language. This has the added bonus that multiple coders working on the same project each can program in their desired language, and all the code will be compiled into the CLR, thus making them interoperable.
interoperability lacked under the MFC API. So .Net applications can be programmed from C++, C# or VB.


Each version of visual studio has only certain versions of .Net it will support. they are partially backward compatible, but mixing the 2 is not recommended.

VS 2002 supports .net 1.0
VS 2003 supports .net 1.1
VS 2005 supports .net 2.0
VS 2008 supports .net 3.0 & 3.5

 

[ZippyDan]

thanks all of you