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Unit 1: Introduction to C#

3. Common run-time environment: .NET is equipped with a common run-time environment Notes
that can be seamlessly shared by all the .NET-aware languages.
4. Base class library: The incompatible API has been dressed into a consistent system of APIs
making calls to methods uniform. The object model has also been redesigned to offer a
uniform object interaction.
5. Simplified COM: The complex interfaces like IclassFactory, Iunknown, IDL code and the
difficult data-types like BSTR, SAFEARRAY etc. have been done away with in .NET.

6. Simplified deployment mechanism: The much horrifying requirement for an object to be
registered into the system-registry before it could be used on a machine has been completely
removed. The .NET run-time environment takes care of all these and more. Also, a multiple
version of the same DLL can exist and be accessed at the same time.

1.1 What is C#?

The needs of a computer programmer and the features they demand from a programming
language keep on changing with time. Once C was supposed to be answer to all the questions in
programming. Though to some extent it is true, yet the need of simpler programming languages
was immediately felt. This very fact has compelled the programming language designers to
continuously revise the existing programming languages. The rapid pace of improvements in
related technologies demands that programming tools must improve even more rapidly to catch
up with them. This is a continuous process and in this process comes a point where a revised
version of a language is so much detached from the original counterpart that it takes form of an
altogether new language.
Due to ongoing struggle for creating the ultimate programming language we have ended up having
so many programming languages today - one catering to a specific need better than the others.
Latest in the sequel of this evolutionary development, Microsoft introduced a new programming
language represented symbolically as C# and pronounced see-sharp. In the recent past it was
observed that both languages C and C++ were very popular among programmers due to the
programming-power they provided to them. However, Visual Basic was found to be popular
because of its simplicity. Some languages have much desirable features while lack in other useful
features. In short, no single computer language has all the features that a modern computer
would like it to have. C# is an attempt of Microsoft to provide just that.
The designers of C# have lifted good features from the existing programming languages and
alleviated them from arcane drudgery by reducing the limitations or removing them completely.
Let us have a look at what limitations in existing programming languages are and how C# enables
the programmers to overcome them.

z z C# has retained the code-simplicity of Visual Basic. VB programmers would not feel the
migration- pain while shifting to C#. VB suffered severely from its limited OOP capabilities.
C# offers true OOP capabilities to the VB programmers without sacrificing the simplicity
of the code.
z z C# has a significant resemblance with the syntax of C++ and Java. It has retained the
usability of OOP and API that C++ provides but has done away with the much error-prone
memory management, much difficult pointer manipulations and incomprehensible code-
structures. C++ programmers have long waited for these enhancements.

z z Java programmers felt handicapped when they wanted to use the existing codes written
in alien languages. Though Java offers platform-independence it is not truly language-
independent. A Java application has to be written in Java end-to-end. It has very limited
capability to use non-Java API’s. C# heralds a good news to Java programmers by providing
seamless integration with millions of lines of codes written in non-Java languages.

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