What is .NET?
.NET is an object-oriented programming model for development of Internet-based distributed systems. It is a platform-independent framework that enables rapid build, deployment and management of web-based applications, smart client applications, and XML web services applications.
Advantages of .NET
Using .NET technology reduces the amount of code necessary for building applications. Web pages created with .NET technology perform common tasks such as form submission and client authorization more easily. A web application using .NET technology is reliable, as the web server controls the pages on an ongoing basis. If it detects any infinite looping, memory leakage or any kind of abnormal or illegal activities, the server immediately destroys them and restarts itself again. .NET provides web application developers with automatic deployment, WYSIWYG editing and drag-and-drop server controls.
But let´s look at some other key advantages in more detail.
.NET applications are compiled. This makes them much faster than other languages such as PHP, which has applications that are interpreted. To achieve the same effects with PHP, Zend and PHP accelerator must be installed on the server, and this is rarely the case at most Web hosting companies.
More Language Support
.NET applications are written using “real” Object Oriented programming languages. PHP is just a simple scripting language when compared to .NET languages such as C++, VB.NET or C# — languages that offer more control and more reusability.
.NET code can be mixed, for example an object in C# can be instantiated from a class written in C++ or VB.NET. This increases the programmer hiring pool for companies, and improves your chances of finding a suitable pre-written class for your project on the Internet.
A free development environment released by Microsoft (called Web Matrix) has a built-in web server, database, administration interface, FTP integration and more. Visual Studio .NET framework offers some amazing qualities. It allows the user to automatically create reports and diagrams from databases, and debug the code line by line, while at the same time seeing what happens in the application. You can assign a temporary value to a variable in the middle of execution in order to test out different scenarios, hover the cursor over variables in the code while debugging to see what value they have “right now”, and much more.
Due to the fact that it’s offered for free (including the code editor, web server, and FTP client), costs are close to zero.
Benefits of .NET to Individual Users
Applications developed in .NET also provide some benefits to users. Primarily, they offer a unified mobile computing solution, where data can be integrated in various computing hardware, such as laptops, smartphones and other devices. Users can access information easily, regardless of their location.
In addition, .NET applications can be easily installed by the user simply copying the files on to the client computer from a remote web server or from a disk. .NET applications are not dependent on the Windows registry, so it is easy to remove or replicate them. The only thing that users need to do is to delete the files or copy over them.
The platform-independence feature enables companies to quickly integrate their systems, information, and devices, thereby helping users collaborate and communicate effectively. Users appreciate easy installation, removal or replication of .NET applications on different devices.
In many cases, the preferred development platform for companies is Java, but where close coupling with Microsoft technologies is required, development using the Microsoft .NET Framework may be required or preferred.