.NET Framework
Microsoft .NET Framework is a software framework that supports several programming languages (of which the most important are C# and VB.NET) and provides a large set of class libraries.
Advantages
- Consistent programming model
- Built-in security support
- Fast and simplified application implementation
- Very good development tools
Disadvantages
- Applications require the .NET Runtime to be installed
- Un-obfuscated code can be easy to reverse engineer
Components
- Common Language Runtime
- Base Class Library
- Windows Forms
- WPF
- ASP.NET
- WCF
- ADO.NET
- LINQ
Development tools
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005-2010
Versions
- .NET Framework 1.0
- .NET Framework 1.1
- .NET Framework 2.0
- .NET Framework 3.0
- .NET Framework 3.5
- .NET Framework 4.0