Professional Visual Basic 2012 and .NET 4.5 Programming

Elements of a .NET Application

A .NET application is composed of four primary entities:

1. Types—The common unit of transmitting data between modules running in the CLR

2. Classes—The basic units that encapsulate data and behavior

3. Modules—The individual files that contain the intermediate language (IL) for an assembly

4. Assemblies—The primary unit of deployment of a .NET application

Classes are covered in detail in the next two chapters, As such we are going to limit the discussion here to clarify that they are defined in the source files for your application or class library. Upon compilation of your source files, you produce a module. The code that makes up an assembly's modules may exist in a single executable (.exe) file or as a dynamic link library (.dll).

A module, is in fact, a Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) file, which is then used by the CLR when your application is run. However, compiling a .NET application doesn't produce only an MSIL file; it also produces a collection of files that make up a deployable application or assembly. Within an assembly are several different types of files, including not only the actual executable files, but also configuration files, signature keys, and related resources.

Types

The type system provides a template that is used to describe the encapsulation of data and an associated set of behaviors. It is this common template for describing data that provides the basis for the metadata that .NET uses when classes interoperate ...