Something about the .Net framework

Learning dot net is interesting. Microsoft .net framework has no exact definition, but I believe it is something that allows applications built in windows to run on other platforms; i.e. acheive independence. This is seemingly interesting. But what makes this platform indepedent? Thats where the dot net frame work fills in. We develop an application in one system called the development system, and then because of the .net framework we can launch it in another target system. There is no restirction on the target system as long it has the .net libraries to work with. This way it acheives platform independence.

But does this sound familiar to you? Hey even Java works on the same principle! This is interesting. In java everything is converted into java byte code and the JVM - java virtual machine is responsible for interpreting the code; where as in .net every application is converted into MSIL - Ms Intermediate Language. The MSIL is run by loading the appropriate class libraries. The class libraries are in turn loaded by the JIT - Just In Time compiler. All of this happens at run time. This is cool.

But now I want to look into what Mono is. Because of the fact that the .net framework achieves platform indepedence (provided that the platform has the .net framework) people have looked into making applications using the .net framework for other platforms, especially linux. You can get more info about this by clicking here.