newbie general questions

[Peter Kirk]

Hi there

I am a newbie in .NET and C# - I have been programming java for the last 4
years, and now I am moving over to the dark side

I am using Microsoft Visual Studio as a development tool. Here they use the
term "solution" and the term "project". Is it a correct assumption that a
solution is comprised of projects? In Visual Studio there is a "start page"
tab, which lists "projects", but it actually appears to be a list of
"solutions" - is that correct?

What is a DLL in .NET terminology? Many years ago I programmed
"old-fashioned" windows applications in C. But I am guessing that the DLLs I
wrote then are not the same type of DLL which .NET generates/uses?

Is there a "newbie" newsgroup in the dotnet hierarchy? Or should one just
try to find the correct group (by subject) and post newbie-type questions
there?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Peter,

A solution can exist from more projects that you can hanlde in one time.
By instance
A webservices.
A webapplication
A windowforms application.
A Dll Library
A deployment project

This are seperated projects as you will understand because the DLL's and
Exe's are completly different used.

Cor

 

[Dave]

Is it a correct assumption that a solution is comprised of projects?

Yep. Zero or more projects, although zero is probably not very useful

What is a DLL in .NET terminology?

..NET projects are compiled to either .DLL's or .EXE's (With the expection of Setup and Deployment projects). Both are refered to as
"Assemblies". They both contain metadata and IL code.

Metadata is analogous to a Type Library, embedded into the Assembly. It also contains other information such as assembly level
attributes, etc. which describe the assembly to the .NET runtime.
IL (Itermediate Language) is platform independant code that .NET JITs (just in time compiles) at runtime. The compiler of your
chosen language (i.e. C#, VB.NET, etc.) outputs IL and metadata.

You can use ILDASM.exe utility if you want to see the IL code generated from your compiler. (Open the VS.NET command prompt, and
type ildasm.exe)

But I am guessing that the DLLs [in C] are not the same type of DLL which .NET generates/uses?

..NET Assemblies can be compiled into a Native assembly using a utility that ships with the framework. I believe it's called
NGen.exe (Native Generator). The JIT process does this for you at runtime, but you can do this manually if high performance is
required and JIT compilation is a bottle neck, although it's unlikely in most common situations for JIT to be a bottle neck at all.

Is there a "newbie" newsgroup in the dotnet hierarchy? Or should one just try to find the correct group (by subject) and post
newbie-type questions there?

I think most groups will accep newbie questions

There are a ton of published resources about .NET on the web, as I'm sure your aware of some. MSDN library is a great place to
reference when you have questions concering almost anything about .NET such as language syntax/grammer, framework assemblies and
VS.NET. www.msdn.com/library

Also, try www.gotdotnet.com. There are many others, but I get what I need from the forums, MSDN and the VS.NET object browser most
of the time.