What Is the .NET Framework?

The .NET Framework is a computing platform that has been designed by Microsoft to simplify the development of modern applications, such as:
Applications that use sophisticated GUI front ends
Applications that use the Internet
Applications that are distributed over more than one computer
Applications that make sophisticated use of databases
There are two main components to the .NET Framework: the common language runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework class library. We’ll examine both of these in this chapter.