What's So Great About .NET?
Its openness. Microsoft .NET's openness is one of the stronger points of the .NET vision even though it isn't a prominent part of the Microsft marketing push.
The source of this openness within the .NET architecture lies in thenbsp.NET' CLR component (aka ECMA-CLI nbsp) which was handed over to ECMA by Microsoft pretty much in response to Sun's failure to do the obvious re. Java.
The article excerpt below (from .NET Magazine) sheds some insight into the Language level openness of .NET (but unfortunately doesn't shed any light on how this openness extends beyond the Windows platformnbspvia efforts such as Mononbspand Rotor ).
Quoting the article author, Bertrand Meyer:
"..a particular aspect of .NET, not necessarily the one most prominently featured in Microsoft's own literature, should be of particular interest to anyone involved in software development, student or not—the multilanguage nature of the technology".
"Many platforms, especially development environments, are targeted to a single language. Java is the most obvious example of the my-language-is-the-best-and-everyone-else-is-wrong attitude. .NET takes a different approach: The platform provides a common basis for developments in many different programming languages, including not only those supported by Microsoft (C#, VB.NET and Managed C++, JScript), but also many others implemented by various companies and universities."
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The ultimate success of the .NET vision is inextricably linked to its openness at both the language and operating system levels.