C# is one of the family of languages Microsoft has designed to be part of its .NET framework. This paper gives a comprehensive introduction to C#, but before we start it is necessary to outline some of the .NET concepts that will underpin the discussion in this paper. C# is part of the .NET Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). The CLI is a framework that enables the multiple .NET languages to talk to each other, and is specifically designed for strongly types languages.

The CLI is comprised of the Common Intermediate Language (CIL) – a common machine independent language into which all .NET applications are “compiled”, the Common Type System (CTS) – a set of types that can be used interchangeably between the .NET languages, and the Virtual Execution System (VES) – which just-in-time compiles the CIL into native assembly code. The complete set of rules that enable all .NET language to talk to each other is called the Common Language System (CLS).

A compiled C# program also contains a block of metadata (data about the program itself) called a manifest. This metadata allows reflection and effectively eliminates the need for the registry.

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