What is .NET? - C# Tutorial

- [Instructor] So what exactly is .NET? .NET is a free, open source developer platform that runs on multiple different operating systems. It was first launched in 2001, and originally, it ran only on Windows, but has since been expanded to Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, gaming systems like Xbox, and even the cloud. The .NET platform can be programmed with a variety of languages, including C#, Visual Basic, F#, and of course the most popular open source ones, like Python, PHP, and C . .NET presents a modern programming architecture that handles many of the more mundane programming tasks automatically for the developer, such as managing program memory. Conceptually, you can think of .NET as being a runtime layer between your apps and the operating systems and form factors that they run on. .NET provides a full set of services that apps need in order to complete their tasks and get their work done, as well as support for .NET enabled languages, like we saw previously, and the CLR, or the common language runtime, which enables the cross-platform abilities of the .NET platform. And as I mentioned, you can build many different kinds of apps with it, from desktop and mobile to web and cloud-based services. Now, obviously this is a lot more than can fit in just one course. For this course, we're going to be focusing on using C# and working with some of the common services provided by .NET. To keep things simple, we'll be building desktop console applications that run in the terminal, but you can of course, use all of the concepts presented in this course in other types of applications as well.