.NET

[JK949]

What is .NET and what does it do ? Should I download it ?
Ati has a feature that requires .NET framework to function.
I'd like to use it but know nothing about .NET except what
Microsofts says about it on their web page. What will it do
after I install it ? Will it change anything. If so what.
I recently read that it has been dropped and is not being used
by internet sites anymore. If I install it and it changes things
and I don't like what it's done can I uninstall it or use system restore
to get rid of it.

 

[MisterChief]

Good
1. Nothing will happen to your computer.
2. Catalyst uses .NET
3. It's stable.

Bad
1. Microsoft

 

[kamper]

.NET is very similar conceptually to java. It's a virtual platform for running bytecode compiled for the .NET environment. I'm not aware of any problems with using it so I don't see that it matters if it's from Microsoft or not.

 

[CQuinn]

I recently read that it has been dropped and is not being used
by internet sites anymore.

No, I think you are confusing .NET with Passport. Passport was supposed to be a "one stop" solution for presenting
and protecting your user identity when you go online with various services.

 

[skyking]

a simple analogy:
.net is like a toolkit that allows a whole family of applications to work on your computer, small applications that you can create yourself.
With .net framework, you can find other tools to make nice little scripts and package them up neatly, like making your own netswitcher for taking your laptop to work, your friend's house, and home.

 

[oog]

Originally posted by: kamper
.NET is very similar conceptually to java. It's a virtual platform for running bytecode compiled for the .NET environment. I'm not aware of any problems with using it so I don't see that it matters if it's from Microsoft or not.

close, but it doesn't run bytecode. the bytecode is always compiled into native code and it is the native code that runs.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: oog

Originally posted by: kamper
.NET is very similar conceptually to java. It's a virtual platform for running bytecode compiled for the .NET environment. I'm not aware of any problems with using it so I don't see that it matters if it's from Microsoft or not.

close, but it doesn't run bytecode. the bytecode is always compiled into native code and it is the native code that runs.

Is that bytecode precompiled or is it at runtime? I was under the impression that bytecode goes in at runtime because of a little news I read a while ago about James Gosling blasting ms for allowing c++ to run within the .NET framework. The problem was that c++ (at least non-native-.NET stuff) is unmanaged code. I figured that since .NET code is managed it must actually be interpreted by the vm at runtime... Admitedly I have a very weak understanding of the whole thing...

 

[Kilrsat]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: oog

Originally posted by: kamper
.NET is very similar conceptually to java. It's a virtual platform for running bytecode compiled for the .NET environment. I'm not aware of any problems with using it so I don't see that it matters if it's from Microsoft or not.

close, but it doesn't run bytecode. the bytecode is always compiled into native code and it is the native code that runs.

Is that bytecode precompiled or is it at runtime? I was under the impression that bytecode goes in at runtime because of a little news I read a while ago about James Gosling blasting ms for allowing c++ to run within the .NET framework. The problem was that c++ (at least non-native-.NET stuff) is unmanaged code. I figured that since .NET code is managed it must actually be interpreted by the vm at runtime... Admitedly I have a very weak understanding of the whole thing...

Its compiled to native code by a jit compiler prior to being executed (and this compile is actually cached for future use). The code does get compiled into bytecode by the actual .Net compilers. So unlike the java hotspot compiler, the .Net JIT compiler can't use runtime behavior to optimize the native compiled code.

 

[oog]

Originally posted by: Kilrsat

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: oog

Originally posted by: kamper
.NET is very similar conceptually to java. It's a virtual platform for running bytecode compiled for the .NET environment. I'm not aware of any problems with using it so I don't see that it matters if it's from Microsoft or not.

close, but it doesn't run bytecode. the bytecode is always compiled into native code and it is the native code that runs.

Is that bytecode precompiled or is it at runtime? I was under the impression that bytecode goes in at runtime because of a little news I read a while ago about James Gosling blasting ms for allowing c++ to run within the .NET framework. The problem was that c++ (at least non-native-.NET stuff) is unmanaged code. I figured that since .NET code is managed it must actually be interpreted by the vm at runtime... Admitedly I have a very weak understanding of the whole thing...

Its compiled to native code by a jit compiler prior to being executed (and this compile is actually cached for future use). The code does get compiled into bytecode by the actual .Net compilers. So unlike the java hotspot compiler, the .Net JIT compiler can't use runtime behavior to optimize the native compiled code.

i was at one of the devlabs when they first introduced .net and at the time they said that the .net JIT compiler does tweak the compilation settings based on the hardware that you have in the computer, which makes it more optimized than something that is generically precompiled and distributed afterwards.