What the hell is .NET?

Allen-Bradley ControlLogix communication comes to Visual Studio .NET.

Phoenixville, PA – Sept. 2005. CimQuest INGEAR announces the release of NETGEAR.Logix. NETGEAR.Logix is a managed code assembly based on Microsoft’s .NET technology which enables Allen-Bradley ControlLogix communication and data management in Microsoft’s Visual Studio VB.NET and C# programming languages.

I.T. Departments will immediately recognize the benefits to deliver enterprise-wide, real-time factory floor content anywhere, anytime by leveraging ASP.NET Web Services built using NETGEAR.Logix.

Visual Studio .NET programmers will find NETGEAR.Logix offers a rich set of features such as self-optimizing read/writes, cached and immediate values, Quality Codes, Timestamps, DataChange events and Group Access in a few easy to use classes. Authoring Compact Framework applications for wireless Windows CE devices, or writing Windows .NET desktop applications implement the identical NETGEAR.Logix class structure for true cross-platform portability.

For OEM’s and System Integrators, NETGEAR.Logix licensing permits deployment of applications to customers and end users without the need to purchase software run-time licenses resulting in significant cost savings for both producer and consumer.

CimQuest INGEAR will offer free online WebEx training courses to introduce VB.NET and C# programmers to NETGEAR.Logix starting mid-October 2005.

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I was reading a news today and found that article. I am vrey far from PC programming languages, so may I ask what is this .NET that is coming more and more popular in automation industry


BR
Lauri

Here's Microsoft's introduction page http://www.microsoft.com/net/basics.mspx

Technically, .NET is a framework. It sits between the application and the operating system. You can create a .NET application in VB.NET, C#, J#, or C++. When you create an application, it is compiled by their respective compiler into MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). The MSIL is converted into native code by the JIT (Just-In Time Compiler) of the CLR (Common Language Runtime) and the native code is run by the CLR.

Blah, blah, blah. So, basically you can create an application in any language you want (VB.NET, C#, J#, C++) it is compiled into an intermediate language (MSIL). When the application is run the intermediate language is converted into machine code. If your familiar with how Java works, you’ll say “Hey that sounds a lot like how Java works”, and it is.

Benefit of .NET, all the languages share a common class library. So if Joe creates and application in VB.NET and I create an application in C#, we can both use the same class, such as a database access class. Another benefit is that Joe could create a class in VB.NET, and I could use that class in my C# application. The other “benefit” is that .NET is not platform dependent. I say that in quotes because it’s technically possible for Microsoft to create a JIT compiler to run on Linux, but they have no plans to do so.

The syntax for the .NET languages is close to the same as earlier versions, so the syntax for VB.NET is almost the same as VB6.0. There are some differences, and this is because the .NET languages use the same class library. There were some things you could do in VB6.0 that were a big no no in C++, so to enable all the languages to use the same class library Microsoft had to change some things around.

If you want to think about it really simply as the next version of Microsoft’s programming languages you can, but it’s a lot more than that.

Tark said:

it’s technically possible for Microsoft to create a JIT compiler to run on Linux, but they have no plans to do so.

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There is a project named Mono bringing .NET to Linux. You can run .NET applications on Linux with MONO. You can create .NET applications on Linux and Windows with it and run them on Windows and Linux. You can run them with original .NET runtime on Windows.

Thanks quys. It is little bit more clear now

But may it force the IT people to move to PLC side?

That would not be very good...

Cool,

I've been learning about .NET, but integration to control systems using win or linux, sounds cooler.

I've got knowledge thirsty!

Saludos.

Hundikoer said:

But may it force the IT people to move to PLC side?

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When I posted I didn't check out what NETGEAR.Logix was because you asked what .NET is. I checked out the NETGEAR.Logix site, and it's more or less a communication driver for ControlLogix. So you can create a .NET application and use NETGEAR.Logix to communicate directly to a ControlLogix processor. Personally I wouldn't go this route if I were creating an application in .NET, I would use OPC.

As far as forcing IT people to move to the PLC side? No, I think the advertisement is more marketing hype than a real world situation.