TechInitiative

So what is so great about .NET ??

So maybe you are new to programming, or simply .NET in general. There are a vast amount of reasons that can be used to cover this topic, an I am not an expert on PHP, and to be quite honest, I have not delved into the latest features of ColdFusion, so this topic will be a little more generalized and focus on what .NET has to offer.

The .NET Framework is a versatile, and very powerful tool that Microsoft has put some quality effort into. While Allaire/Macromedia ColdFusion was my starter language (Allaire CF version 3.1.1 to be precise), I still believe that there is a lot of power, and excellent benefits with this language; however, once I took the time to fully learn ASP.NET, utilizing C#, I simply cannot go back.

Again, there are a variety of topics to discuss here, and maybe i'll miss some big ones, but here are some of the basic concepts that I have come to love:

.NET is a strong type definition language

A strong type definition language simply refers to the fact that when you declare a variable, you assign it as a specific type (string, integer, etc). In ColdFusion, prior to newer advancements in the making with the latest version, a variable was really just a string, and you as a programmer would have to make sure that you could not use it improperly, based on the actual data stored. Witha strong typed language, you have the development tools at your side that will help you debug, plus memory usage goes down when you can narrow your data types down.

Microsoft Visual Studio.NET

A very powerful tool is an understatement, when referring to this product. Intellisense basically connects your code, on-the-fly. Let's say you create a method in a class, then on a completley different file you make a call to this method. Well Joe Schmo a few months later comes into your application and is not familiar with where this method resides, so he right clicks on the method call, says "go to definition", and Studio opens the appropriate file and takes you to the method. This example illustrates how everything is connected, and it is extremely powerful when troubleshooting / debugging. An entire article could continue on this...

User Interface (UI) / Logic Separation

.NET separates User Interface from Logic, and it is recommended that you keep "all" logic out of your UI (.aspx file). There is however a .aspx.cs file, which is directly linked to your UI. This is where your logic goes. A true layer of UI and logic separation truly empowers your application in many ways.

Object Oriented Programming (OOP)

Tired of recreating logic, updating and maintaining logic in multiple places? Well by using Object Oriented Programming, you are truly creating a maintainable application, and after several years of utilizing OOP, I have to say it just makes sense.

I hope you enjoyed this tid-bit of information. There is really a lot more to discuss in more detail, but if I have given you a general overview worthy of inspiring more research, then my work here is done.

- Brent Helms
Microsoft Certified Professional