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Unit 1: Introduction to C#

Here’s a brief history of the (C#) and the (.NET). The .NET CLR is based on Colusa software’s Notes
language-neutral OmniVM, a part of their Omniware product. OmniVM was based on research
carried out by Steven Lucco at Carnegie Mellon University. Steven co-founded Colusa Software
in February 1994 in Berkeley, California. Omniware was released in August 1995. Colusa started
working with Microsoft in February 1996. Microsoft acquired Colusa Software in the year 1996.
Colusa Virtual Machine was christened as Intermediate Language (IL) subsequently.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1. VB programmers would not feel the migration- pain while shifting to ......................
2. .NET supports cross-language inheritance, cross-language exceptional handling and cross-
language ...................... features.

3. The .NET Framework has two main components: the common language runtime and the
.NET Framework ......................
4. The class library builds on the ...................... nature of the runtime, providing types from
which your own managed code can derive functionality.
5. The .NET Framework class library is a collection of reusable classes, or types, that tightly
integrate with the ...................... runtime.
1.4 Characteristics of C#

The main design goal of C# was simplicity rather than pure power. It has type safety and
automatic garbage collection in return. C# can make your code more stable and productive
overall, meaning that you can more than make up that lost power in the long run. C# offers
several key benefits for programmers:

z z Simplicity
z z Consistency
z z Modernity
z z Object-orientation

z z Type-safety
z z Scalability
z z Version support
z z Compatibility
z z Flexibility
Let’s look at each of the ways that C# stands to improve your coding life.

Simplicity

What’s one of the most annoying things about working in C++? It has to use the -> pointer
indicator, when to use the: for a class member, and when to use the dot. And the compiler knows
when you get it wrong. In C#, everything is represented by a dot. Whether you’re looking at
members, classes, name-spaces, references, or what have you, you don’t need to track which
operator to use.

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