[RESOLVED] .NET platform independent or not!

[senthilkumartd]

Hi,
Any body have idea about the .net that is platform independent of not?. Somebody saying independent and somebody saying dependent. Any one has real time experience. I am not having such a facility to check it.

[jmcilhinney]

.NET assemblies are platform independent in the sense that all .NET projects are compiled to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) code. That code can then run on any system that can compile MSIL to machine code on-the-fly. The .NET Framework does that on Windows systems. Mono does it on various other operating systems.

This is exactly how Java works. Java code is compiled to byte code, which is then compiled to machine code by a Java Virtual Machine on-the-fly. Java is considered platform independent because virtually every platform has had a JVM written for it. Each JVM is platform-specific, but their existence makes Java itself platform-independent. It's just like you being able to speak to people in any country as long as there's a person available who can translate your language into the native language of that country.

The difference between Java and .NET is that Sun (the creator of Java) actively encouraged support for Java on as many platforms as possible. While Microsoft has designed .NET such that it can be supported on any platform, they haven't exactly gone out of their way to encourage multi-platform support. That's because it would make Windows less important, and Microsoft certainly don't want that.

[senthilkumartd]

thanks