In 2000, Microsoft announced the C# programming language. C# has roots in the C, C++ and Java programming languages. It has similar capabilities to Java and is appropriate for the most demanding app-development tasks, especially for building today’s large-scale enterprise apps, and web-based, mobile and “cloud”-based apps.
C# is object oriented—we’ve discussed the basics of object technology and will present a rich treatment of object-oriented programming throughout the book. C# has access to the powerful .NET Framework Class Library—a vast collection of prebuilt classes that enable you to develop apps quickly (Fig. 1.3). We’ll say more about .NET in Section 1.9.