Chapter 4. Essentials of the .NET Framework

In the previous chapter, we looked at how to write, compile, and execute code that targets .NET. In this chapter, we examine the facilities that the .NET Framework provides to load and execute the code and provide services to the executing code. We start with an overview of various components that constitute the .NET Framework. Then we look at the overall process of managed code execution. We will see how .NET applications can be administratively controlled using external configuration files and how the configuration mechanism can be extended to store custom settings. We then look at the type system used by the common language runtime and examine the memory and performance considerations of using reference types versus value types. We examine how the CLS provides for cross-language interoperability. We look at how the execution engine validates the metadata, verifies the MSIL code for type-safety, and performs JIT compilation on the MSIL code. Finally, we look at the automatic memory management features of the runtime and how it simplifies or complicates programming under .NET. By the end of the chapter, you will have a good understanding of .NET architecture and how it helps in producing robust applications that can potentially be reused by any programming language under .NET. You will also learn the strategies of generating efficient code.