Understanding .NET Components
Learn about the components of .NET, including language compilers, the Common Language Runtime, and the Base Class Libraries.
.NET is made up of several pieces, which are shown in the following list:
Language compilers: These turn our source code written with languages such as C#, F#, and Visual Basic into Intermediate Language (IL) code stored in assemblies. With C# 6.0 and later, Microsoft switched to an open-source rewritten compiler known as Roslyn, which is also used by Visual Basic.
Common Language Runtime (CoreCLR): This runtime loads assemblies, compiles the IL code stored in them into native code instructions for our computer’s CPU, and executes the code within an environment that manages resources such as threads and memory.
Base Class Libraries (BCL or CoreFX): These are prebuilt assemblies of types packaged and distributed using NuGet for performing common tasks when building applications. We can use them to quickly build anything we ...