Introduction:
C# is a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft within its .NET initiative led by Anders Hejlsberg. This tutorial will teach you basic C# programming and will also take you through various advanced concepts related to C# programming language.
Audience:
This tutorial has been prepared for the beginners to help them understand basic C# programming.
Prerequisites:
C# programming is very much based on C and C++ programming languages, so if you have a basic understanding of C or C++ programming, then it will be fun to learn C#.
Strong Programming features of C#:
Although C# constructs closely follow traditional high-level languages, C and C++ and being an object-oriented programming language. It has strong resemblance with Java, it has numerous strong programming features that make it endearing to a number of programmers worldwide.
Following is the list of few important features of C# −
- Boolean Conditions
- Automatic Garbage Collection
- Standard Library
- Assembly Versioning
- Properties and Events
- Delegates and Events Management
- Easy-to-use Generics
- Indexers
- Conditional Compilation
- Simple Multithreading
- LINQ and Lambda Expressions
- Integration with Windows
Environment:
We have already mentioned that C# is part of .Net framework and is used for writing .Net applications. Therefore, before discussing the available tools for running a C# program, let us understand how C# relates to the .Net framework.
The .Net Framework:
The .Net framework is a revolutionary platform that helps you to write the following types of applications −
- Windows applications
- Web applications
- Web services
The .Net framework applications are multi-platform applications. The framework has been designed in such a way that it can be used from any of the following languages: C#, C++, Visual Basic, Jscript, COBOL, etc. All these languages can access the framework as well as communicate with each other.
The .Net framework consists of an enormous library of codes used by the client languages such as C#. Following are some of the components of the .Net framework −
- Common Language Runtime (CLR)
- The .Net Framework Class Library
- Common Language Specification
- Common Type System
- Metadata and Assemblies
- Windows Forms
- ASP.Net and ASP.Net AJAX
- ADO.Net
- Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
- Windows Presentation Foundation
- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
- LINQ
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C#:
Microsoft provides the following development tools for C# programming −
Visual Studio (VS)
Visual C# Express (VCE)
Visual Web Developer
The last two are freely available from Microsoft official website. Using these tools, you can write all kinds of C# programs from simple command-line applications to more complex applications. You can also write C# source code files using a basic text editor, like Notepad, and compile the code into assemblies using the command-line compiler, which is again a part of the .NET Framework.
Visual C# Express and Visual Web Developer Express edition are trimmed down versions of Visual Studio and has the same appearance. They retain most features of Visual Studio.
You can download it from Microsoft Visual Studio. It gets installed automatically on your machine.