Getting Started with .NET

Welcome to the world of .NET! Whether you are a seasoned programmer or a beginner, learning .NET can open up a plethora of opportunities for you. In this section, we will introduce you to the basic concepts and terminology of .NET.

What is .NET?

.NET is a free, open-source platform developed by Microsoft that allows developers to build a wide range of applications, including web, desktop, mobile, gaming, and IoT applications. It provides a unified programming model and a common set of APIs for building applications across different platforms.

Key Concepts

Before we dive into the technical details, let's familiarize ourselves with some key concepts in .NET:

• Common Language Runtime (CLR): The CLR is the heart of the .NET platform. It provides services such as memory management, exception handling, and garbage collection. It also serves as an execution engine for .NET applications.
• Base Class Library (BCL): The BCL is a collection of reusable classes, interfaces, and value types that provide a rich set of functionality for building .NET applications.
• Managed Code: In .NET, code written in any supported language is compiled into an intermediate language called Common Intermediate Language (CIL). This CIL is then executed by the CLR.
• Assembly: An assembly is a fundamental unit of deployment in .NET. It contains compiled code, metadata, and resources that are necessary to run a .NET application.

Hello World in .NET

Let's start with a classic example in the programming world: printing "Hello World!" to the console. In .NET, you can achieve this with just a few lines of code:

1using System;
2
3namespace HelloWorld
4{
5    class Program
6    {
7        static void Main(string[] args)
8        {
9            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
10        }
11    }
12}

In this code, we first include the System namespace, which contains the Console class. We then define a Program class with a Main method, which is the entry point of a .NET application. Inside the Main method, we use the Console.WriteLine method to print "Hello World!" to the console.

Congratulations! You've written your first .NET program. Exciting, isn't it?

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using System;

​

namespace HelloWorld

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");

        }

    }

}