This article discusses the features introduced in Microsoft .net framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 and newly introduced 4.5 framework.
.Net Framework Features, from .Net 2.0 to 4.5
- Introduction
- .Net Framework 2.0 Features
- ADO.NET 2.0
- SQL Server data provider (SqlClient)
- XML
- .NET Remoting
- ASP.NET 2.0
- .Net Framework 3.0/3.5 Features
- Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
- Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF)
- Windows Card Space (WCS)
- Core New Features and Improvements
- Auto Implemented
- Implicit Typed local variable
- Implicitly Typed Arrays
- Anonymous Types
- Extension Methods(3.5 new feature)
- Object and Collection Initializers
- Lambda Expressions
- .Net Framework 4.0 Features
- Application
Compatibility and Deployment
- Core New Features
and Improvements
- BigInteger and Complex Numbers
- Tuples
- Covariance and Contravariance
- Dynamic Language Runtime
- Managed
Extensibility Framework
- Parallel Computing
- Networking
- Web
- Client
- Data
- Windows
Communication Foundation
- Windows Workflow
Foundation
- .Net Framework 4.5 Features
- .NET for Windows
Store Apps
- Portable Class Libraries
- Core New Features and Improvements
- Tools
- Parallel Computing
- Web
- Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
- Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
- Conclusion
Introduction
This article discusses the features
introduced in Microsoft .net framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 and newly introduced
4.5 framework.
.Net Framework 2.0 Features
ADO.NET
New features in ADO.NET include support for user-defined types
(UDT), asynchronous database operations, XML data types, large value types,
snapshot isolation, and new attributes that allow applications to support
multiple active result sets (MARS) with SQL Server 2005
ASP.NET
The
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 includes significant enhancements to all areas of
ASP.NET. For Web page development, new controls make it easier to add commonly
used functionality to dynamic Web pages. New data controls make it possible to
display and edit data on an ASP.NET Web page without writing code. An improved
code-behind model makes developing ASP.NET pages easier and more robust. Caching
features provide several new ways to cache pages, including the ability to
build cache dependency on tables in a SQL Server database.
ASP.NET
accommodates a wide variety of browsers and devices. By default, controls
render output that is compatible with XHTML 1.1 standards. You can use device
filtering to specify different property values on the same control for
different browsers.
.NET Remoting
.NET
Framework Remoting now supports IPv6 addresses and the exchange of generic
types. The classes in the System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Tcp namespace support
authentication and encryption using the Security Support Provider Interface
(SSPI). Classes in the new System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Ipc namespace allow
applications on the same computer to communicate quickly without using the
network. Finally, you can now configure the connection cache time-out and the
number of method retries, which can improve the performance of network
load-balanced remote clusters.
XML
The
new System.Xml.XmlReaderSettings class allows to specify the type of
verifications which must be done when using a subclass of XmlReader to read XML
data.
It
is now possible to partially validate a DOM tree loaded within an instance of XmlDocument.
It
is now possible to modify a DOM tree stored in an XmlDocument instance through
the XPathNavigator cursor API.
.Net Framework 3.0/3.5 Features
Windows
Presentation Foundation (WPF)
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client
applications. The core of WPF is a resolution-independent and vector-based
rendering engine that is built to take advantage of modern graphics hardware.
WPF extends the core with a comprehensive set
of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup
Language (XAML), controls, data binding, layout, 2-D and 3-Dgraphics,
animation, styles, templates, documents, media, text, and typography. WPF is
included in the Microsoft .NET Framework, so you can build applications that
incorporate other elements of the .NET Framework class library.
To support some of the more powerful WPF capabilities and to simplify the
programming experience, WPF includes additional programming constructs that
enhance properties and events: dependency properties and routed events.
Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF)
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft’s unified programming model for building
service-oriented applications. WCF allows you to build all kinds of distributed
applications including 'traditional' Web Services so that your services support
SOAP and will therefore be compatible with older .NET (and other) technologies.
WCF is not just about pure SOAP over the wire - you can work with an Info set,
and create a binary representation of your SOAP message that can then be sent
along with your choice of protocol. This is for those who are particularly
concerned about performance and have traditionally turned to .NET remoting.
Windows
Workflow Foundation (WWF)
Windows Workflow
Foundation, a core component of .NET Framework
3.0, provides a programming model, run-time engine, and tools for building
workflow applications
A workflow is created and maintained
by the workflow run-time engine. There can be several workflow engines within
an application domain, and each workflow engine can support multiple workflows
running concurrently. The run-time enables idle workflows to be unloaded from
memory, persisted to a store, and reloaded whenever input is received.
Workflows can be authored in code,
XAML markup, or a combination of both, known as code-separation, which is
similar to the ASP.NET mode
Windows
CardSpace (WCS):
Windows CardSpace (InfoCard) is a Digital
Identity to online services. Digital Identity means how user will
electronically represent them. Like as a debit/credit card each card has
digital identity and password. If any user go to use the site on internet then
he enter their username and password, for identity, but this is not
secure. To reduce these types of
problems WCS works.
WCS (originally called Info Card)
helps people keep track of their digital identities as distinct information
cards. If a Web site accepts WCS logins, users attempting to log in to
that site will see a WCS selection. By choosing a card, users also choose a
digital identity that will be used to access this site. CardSpace and the new
supporting technologies will change how you authenticate into an application,
whether it sits on the Web, your phone, or your desktop.
Core New
Features and Improvements
Some core new features and improvements are implemented in .Net
3.0/3.5
1. Auto
Implemented Property
2. Implicit
Typed local variable
3. Implicitly
Typed Arrays
4. Anonymous
Types
5. Extension Methods
(3.5 new feature)
6. Object and
Collection Initializers
7. Lambda
Expressions
.Net Framework 4.0 Features
Common Language Runtime
(CLR)
Application
Compatibility and Deployment
.NET Framework 4 is highly compatible with
applications that are built with earlier .NET Framework versions but there are
some changes that were made to improve security, standards compliance,
correctness, reliability, and performance.
Managed
Extensibility Framework
MEF is a new library in .NET Framework 4
that helps you build extensible and composable applications.
Parallel
Computing
In involves writing multithreaded and asynchronous code that simplify the work
of application developers.It enables the developers to write
efficiently,fine-grained and scalable code.
Networking
Networking improvements are as
follows:
1. Security improvements for Windows
authentication
2. Support for Network Address
Translation
3. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support
4. Improved support for mail headers
Web
ASP.NET version 4 introduces new features
in the following areas:
1. Core Services
2. Web Forms
3. Web Forms Control
4. Visual Web Developer
5. Multi-targeting
.Net Framework 4.5 Features
.NET for Windows Store Apps
Windows Store apps are designed for specific form factors and
leverage the power of the Windows operating system. A subset of the .NET
Framework 4.5 is available for building Windows Store apps for Windows by using
C# or Visual Basic.
Portable
Class Libraries
The Portable Class Library project in Visual Studio 2012 enables
you to write and build managed assemblies that work on multiple .NET Framework
platforms. Using a Portable Class Library project, you choose the platforms
(such as Windows Phone and .NET for Windows Store apps) to target.
ASP.NET 4.5
ASP.NET 4.5 includes the following new features:
- Support
for new HTML5 form types.
- Support
for model binders in Web Forms. These let you bind data controls directly
to data-access methods, and automatically convert user input to and from
.NET Framework data types.
- Support
for unobtrusive JavaScript in client-side validation scripts.
- Improved
handling of client script through bundling and minification for improved
page performance.
- Integrated
encoding routines from the AntiXSS library (previously an external
library) to protect from cross-site scripting attacks.
- Support
for WebSockets protocol.
Windows
Presentation Foundation (WPF) Features in 4.5
In the .NET Framework 4.5, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
contains changes and improvements in the following areas:
- The
new Ribbon
control, which enables you to implement a ribbon user interface that hosts
a Quick Access Toolbar, Application Menu, and tabs.
- The
new INotifyDataErrorInfo
interface, which supports synchronous and asynchronous data validation.
- New
features for the VirtualizingPanel
and Dispatcher
classes.
- Improved
performance when displaying large sets of grouped data, and by accessing
collections on non-UI threads.
- Data
binding to static properties, data binding to custom types that implement
the ICustomTypeProvider
interface, and retrieval of data binding information from a binding
expression.
- Repositioning
of data as the values change (live shaping).
- Ability
to check whether the data context for an item container is disconnected.
- Ability
to set the amount of time that should elapse between property changes and
data source updates.
- Improved
support for implementing weak event patterns. Also, events can now accept
markup extensions.
Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF) Features in 4.5
In the .NET Framework 4.5, the following features have been added
to make it simpler to write and maintain Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
applications:
- Simplification
of generated configuration files.
- Support
for contract-first development.
- Ability
to configure ASP.NET compatibility mode more easily.
- Changes
in default transport property values to reduce the likelihood that you
will have to set them.
- Updates
to the XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas
class to reduce the likelihood that you will have to manually configure
quotas for XML dictionary readers.
- Validation
of WCF configuration files by Visual Studio as part of the build process,
so you can detect configuration errors before you run your application.
- New
asynchronous streaming support.
- New
HTTPS protocol mapping to make it easier to expose an endpoint over HTTPS
with Internet Information Services (IIS).
- Ability
to generate metadata in a single WSDL document by appending ?singleWSDL to
the service URL.
- Websockets
support to enable true bidirectional communication over ports 80 and 443
with performance characteristics similar to the TCP transport.
- Support
for configuring services in code.
- XML
Editor tooltips.
Windows
Workflow Foundation (WF) Features in 4.5
Several new features have been added to Windows Workflow
Foundation (WF) in the .NET Framework 4.5. These new features include:
- State
machine workflows, which were first introduced as part of the .NET
Framework 4.0.1 (.NET
Framework 4 Platform Update 1). This update included several
new classes and activities that enabled developers to create state machine
workflows. These classes and activities were updated for the .NET
Framework 4.5 to include:
- The
ability to set breakpoints on states.
- The
ability to copy and paste transitions in the workflow designer.
- Designer
support for shared trigger transition creation.
References:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t357fb32.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479861.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171868.aspx