Visual C# .NET Part 2: Compiling .NET Code - .NET Framework and .NET Languages
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When we say .NET languages we mean any language that works on the .NET Framework. In other words, we can call any language that uses the .NET Framework Class Library (FCL) and is managed by the Common Language Runtime (CLR) a .NET-compliant language (languages which support .NET Platform). From these languages: Microsoft Visual Basic.NET (VB.NET), Microsoft Visual C++.NET and there are also COBOL, Eiffel, Jscript, RPG and many others. But as we stated before, C# was designed especially for .NET Framework and there are some functionalities in C# you can’t do in other languages. However, Microsoft developed Visual Basic.NET as an upgrade for Visual Basic programmers who like to work with the .NET platform.
All .NET-compliant languages will use FCL and CLR for creating applications. For example, VB.NET programmers will use the same function that C# programmers use to write a line to the console (console means the command-line screen), but of course there are difference to get this code done. Let’s look at the following .NET applications.
This is the C# application that will write a line to the console:
using System;
namespace testingApplications
{
/// <summary>
/// Summary description for Class1.
/// </summary>
class Class1
{
/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("I like C# Programming");
}
}
}
This is the VB.NET application that will write the same line to the console:
Module Module1
Sub Main()
Console.WriteLine("I like C# Programming")
End Sub
End Module
Figure 1 illustrates the result of compiling and running the first application (C# application):
Figure 2 illustrates the result of compiling and running the second application (VB.NET application):
Here we get the same result using the same function which writes a line to the console but with different .NET languages. So all .NET languages will use the capabilities of FCL and CLR, but each language implementation differs from the others. For example, C# is case sensitive language and VB.NET is not.
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