During the summer of 2000, at the Professional Developers Conference, the Microsoft Corporation announced its vision of the next generation of Windows services- .NET (pronounced "dot-net"). Since that time, many steps have been taken to ensure that .NET becomes a reality. The paradigm has been refined with each release of the .NET Framework, with the public releases of the Visual Studio.NET beta software, and with the final release of both. The key to understanding .NET and how it may impact your life is to recognize the technical innovations that make it both powerful and unique. This course is the first in a series of .NET-related courses. It will provide you with the basic concepts required to decode the terminology and features of .NET, and will serve as the foundation for the other .NET courseware.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify the five main components of the .NET Framework
• Explain how each functions as part of the whole
• Identify the major components of the CLR
• Explain how each supports the overall function of the CLR
• Identify the advantages of using the .NET Framework CLR
• Describe the advantages of working with members of the .NET Class Framework
• Characterize deployment within .NET, and show how .NET deployment eliminates DLL Hell.
• Examine the features of the new integrated IDE
• Building and compiling your first .NET application.

Prerequisite(s):

To register for this course students must either take, or have the equivalent working knowledge of, the following course(s):

• Introduction to Programming

Next Courses:

• Visual Basic.NET

The Career Center Course Curriculum for Intoduction to .NET:

Lesson 1: Introducing .NET-The Big Picture

• Topic 1A: Characterize The .NET Paradigm
• Topic 1B: Describe Web Services

Lesson 2: Building .NET-The Framework Components

• Topic 2A: Describe the .NET Framework
• Topic 2B: Describe the Common Language Runtime (CLR)
• Topic 2C: Compare the .NET Class Framework Language- Specific Class Library
• Topic 2D: Decide When to Use .NET Windows Forms
• Topic 2E: Describe the Uses of Web Forms and Web Services
• Topic 2F: Identify When to Use Console Applications

Lesson 3: Managing .NET-The Common Language Runtime Components

• Topic 3A: Identify the Components of the CLR
• Topic 3B: Describe Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL)
• Topic 3C: Distinguish Between the .NET Compilers
• Topic 3D: Describe How the CLR Manages Memory

Lesson 4: Taking Advantage of the Common Language Runtime

• Topic 4A: Identify Advantages of RAD
• Topic 4B: Describe Multiple Language Support in .NET
• Topic 4C: Explain Cross-Language Interoperability
• Topic 4D: Explain Garbage Collection
• Topic 4E: Describe Structured Error-Handling

Lesson 5: Unifying .NET-The Class Framework

• Topic 5A: Describe the .NET Class Framework
• Topic 5B: Describe the Purpose of Namespaces
• Topic 5C: To Use or Not to Use Inheritance
• Topic 5D: Differentiate Between Interface- and Inheritance-Based Polymorphism
• Topic 5E: Indicate When Overloading is Used

Lesson 6: Deploying .NET Applications

• Topic 6A: Describe Component Deployment
• Topic 6B: Describe DLL Hell
• Topic 6C: Describe an Assembly

Lesson 7: Getting Started with Visual Studio.NET

• Topic 7A: Access Online Resources
• Topic 7B: Set Up a VB.NET Windows Forms Application
• Topic 7C: Create a Simple .NET Application
• Topic 7D: Compile and Debug