Programming Windows with C# (Core Reference) : 9780735613706

This book shows you how to write programs that run under Microsoft Windows. There are a number
of ways to write such programs. In this book, I use the new object-oriented programming language
C# (pronounced "C sharp") and a modern class library called Windows Forms. The Windows Forms
class library is part of the Microsoft .NET ("dot net") Framework unveiled in the summer of 2000 and
introduced about a year and a half later.

The Microsoft .NET Framework is an extensive collection of classes that provides programmers with
much of what they need to write Internet, Web, and Windows applications. Much of the media
coverage of .NET has focused on the Web programming. This book discusses the other part of
.NET. You use Windows Forms to write traditional stand-alone Windows applications (what are now
sometimes called client applications) or front ends for distributed applications.
Windows Forms provides almost everything you need to write full-fledged Windows applications. The
big omission is multimedia support. There's not even a Windows Forms function to beep the
computer's speaker! I was tempted to write my own multimedia classes but restrained myself under
the assumption (reasonable, I hope) that the next release of Windows Forms will include multimedia
support that is flexible, powerful, and easy to use.

The classes defined in the .NET Framework are language-neutral. Microsoft has released new
versions of C++ and Visual Basic that can use these classes, as well as the new programming
language C#. Other language vendors are adapting their own languages to use the .NET classes.
These new compilers (either optionally or by default) convert source code to an intermediate
language in an .exe file. At runtime, the intermediate language is compiled into appropriate
microprocessor machine code. Thus, the .NET Framework is potentially platform independent.