Thread: What is Common Language Runtime

The common language runtime (CLR) is the foundation upon which developers construct various kinds of applications. The benefits of the CLR are many. It makes for a vastly simplified development. It enables a seamless integration of code written in different languages. It provides evidence-based security with code identity. The assembly based deployment eliminates the problems of DLL. The versioning of reusable components makes for ease of usage. The implementation inheritance feature enables the reuse of code. The automatic object lifetime management makes the application- development comfortable. The self descriptive nature of objects makes for ease of programming and debugging.

CLR includes both private and shared components. It provides for incremental download of code and caching; native platform interoperability and seamless integration with COM. It offers dynamic inspection capabilities, administration and configuration options. The developer is not required to know all the runtime supported infrastructure. The tools and frameworks are designed to expose a subset of the functionality in accordance with the kind of application being built.

The common language runtime is a virtual execution system that provides important services such as memory management, security and also has a Just-in-Time compiler (JIT) which converts the intermediate language (IL) into native code that can be executed by the physical machine. The infrastructure provides a machine independent environment for application execution.

Tight security is maintained in implementing common language runtime. Managed components are awarded varying degrees of trust. Access rights are determined by factors such as origin of the component (Internet, enterprise network, or local computer). On the flip side this restricts access to file and registry operations, even if the file being operated upon is on within the same active application.

The managed environment of the runtime eliminates many common software issues. For example, the runtime automatically handles object layout and manages references to objects, releasing them when they are no longer being used. This automatic memory management resolves the two most common application errors--memory leaks and invalid memory references.

The futuristic design of the infrastructure is takes into consideration the need to integrate with the legacy applications that are still in operation.

Interoperability between managed and unmanaged code enables developers to continue to use necessary COM components and DLLs.

The use of ‘Common type’ system implements the features of the .NET infrastructure. The common data types shared by multiple languages such as VB.NET, C#, ASP.NET eases the import of a class created in one language into another. A common error handling facility makes for tighter integration between languages and allows developers the freedom of working in the language of their choice.