Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
What is the Microsoft .NET Framework? If you’re an end user, you don’t have to care, except when you want to install, say, Paint.NET, and you find that you have to first download this thing called the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package; at 22 MB, it could be annoying if your Internet connection is slow.
But if you still want to know what the .NET Framework is, this is the simplest explanation I can think of: it’s software for software. For example, Paint.NET is an application that “runs on .NET”. But why bother? Why introduce another layer? Why not just run on the operating system, like how it’s always been done? It’s really to make software developers’ lives easier. Think of the .NET Framework as a big collection of reusable code for programmers. This, in theory, should result in better software.
.NET Framework 1.0 was released in 2002, followed by version 1.1 in 2003 and version 2.0 in 2005. I’ve had to develop software for all three versions and I find version 2.0 very much improved over 1.1, especially for web applications.
.NET Framework 3.0 was released but not really released in 2006. The reason I say this is because .NET 3.0 = .NET 2.0 + WPF + WCF + WF + WCS. In fact I see it more as a reorganization than a release. Previously, Microsoft had this thing going on called WinFX, which was supposed to be the core [1] of the next generation Windows operating system called Longhorn. Longhorn got scrapped [2] and I guess the set of technologies previously known as WinFX had nowhere to go, so they decided to merge these technologies with .NET 2.0, calling it version 3.0 of the .NET Framework.
Notes
- Interestingly enough, a Google of “WinFX” doesn’t get you anywhere, so I’m just guessing here.
- Longhorn was supposed to become Vista, but Vista took Windows Server 2003 as its codebase instead.
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