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."
More..
The ultimate success of the .NET vision is
inextricably linked to its openness at both the language and
operating system levels.