Leland: > Microsoft's .NET framework was an extension of Sun's Java platform, > which was developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc under their Solaris > distribution of UNIX.
Again, wrong. It's not the JVM, nor an extension of it. The CLR and the JVM have very different designs, even though they are both stack-based virtual machines. Both are cross platform: Java because Sun made it so, and .NET because MS allows it to be so and opened the CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) up to ECMA standardization so that third parties could implement it on other platforms. This has indeed happened with the Mono project as well as the lesser-known, GNU-friendlier Portable.NET project. Microsoft developed the CLR as a competitive response to Sun's Java, after they were sued by Sun for extending the MS version of the JVM in J++ to integrate more tightly with the operating systems and other Microsoft technologies. Whatever one thinks of that dispute, there is no doubting that MS seized an opportunity to learn from Sun's success with Java to "recreate itself" as a development organization and provide through .NET all the stuff it had promised in a far less comprehensive way with various disparate technologies like COM+. The CLR's vision was substantially different than Sun's vision for the JVM. The CLR was all about multiple language interoperability, whereas Sun intended Java to be the "one language" everyone would program in on all platforms. There is no equivalent in Java to the CTS (Common Type System) nor does Java have an intermediate IL "assembly" language like .NET does, because there was no thought given to the original Java to additional languages generating Java byte code, although it was an area of active academic research. Sun just wasn't interested in it. In fact, Anders Hejlsberg's original job was in fact as manager of MS's J++ compiler. But when the "falling out" between MS and Sun happened it became "Build a better Java than Java." Anders used to work at Borland, where he invented Turbo Pascal, Delphi and C++ Builder. His forte was binary interop and compiler/language design, and he did several unique things with C# that Java was later forced to do to remain competitive. Overall the competition has been good for developers on all platforms, all this mish-mash MS being a monopoly has been refuted over the last 10 years just like the inconvenient fact that global temperatures have been falling since 1998 have refuted global warming hysteria. But people keep believing what they want to believe. > VS is Microsofts IDE to its .NET framework or: It's also a general purpose, highly extensible IDE, suitable for C++ development as well as third party languages, such as RemObjects' Chrome (the evolutionary successor to Delphi.NET as an Object Pascal language targeting the CLI, which Borland/CodeGear/Embacadero/whatever ultimately adopted with their new Delphi Prism product). - Bob _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
