Yes, of course there is - that's CLR (Common Language Runtime) integration - did you not ever wonder why Windows Update insists upon downloading so much .NET nonsense every month even if you' go out of your way to avoid .NET dependency-programmes? It's a Windows component like any other, essentially just a very very very bloated runtime library (well, "environment", really), like Java and its virtual-environment, except you don't have a choice about installing it (practically speaking). The CLR treats everything as managed-code, regardless of the code's true provenance.
LifeHacker wrote:The 4.0 version of .NET for standard 32-bit Windows systems requires 850 MB of free space on your primary Windows drive; a 64-bit Windows system needs 2 GB free
So sure, in much the same way as Windows loads the (relatively tiny) API DLL's it requires (such as shell32, etc) whenever you run a stock executable, the .NET framework is always lurking in the background, just waiting to spool up and kick puppies and spit on old people waiting at bus-stops (you can always tell a .NET application by the delay in its startup no matter how fast your computer).
This is largely what "Visual" means, and if you give people a large library of blind spaghetti-code to use, they won't turn it down, they'll say, "Yeah, no problem, my customers will just have to adapt to my lazy attitude". Especially popular as an entry-point for kids learning Visual Basic: infect them while they're young.
My point was that while C#
as a language was created from the ground-up to be 100% .NET dependant, the C++ language (or any other non-"Visual"-moniker) does not actually have anything to do
natively with the framework, and so they should never be connected. Much the same way as the people on Stack Overflow will bend over backwards to (rightly!) point out that C and C++ are two
completely different languages that just happen to share a compiler-methodology (contrary to the impression that Wikipedia would give you), anything that is connected to the .NET knowledge-death-cult exists in name-only once it's infected (due to the way the JIT runtimes work).
So, even though I am loath to admit it, C++ programmes may be considered "pure" in their compilation-state; but C++ that uses .NET is no longer really C++... it's just a scripting language co-opted into the service of corporate consumers and given a name that "sounds like" the real thing to catch out the unwary questing hero.
Did you ever wonder why very few professional 3rd-party programmes are written in .NET? Most utilities are based in C or Delphi or C++, or other such traditional foundations - no one writes .NET applications for the independent-developer eco-system, they write them as a queer mix of (in-house) business-support, and the kids who don't know any better but hear so much about it that they assume it's actually used by real people. No one would ever proudly display on their website that "This product is 100% pure .NET!" - instead, they write at the bottom in a creepy and apologetic tone, that "it requires .NET". Did that not ever strike you as a bit odd and furtive?
So (previously in this thread) when sanferno asked Nikos if "
you develop x2 and DR using Visual C++, don't you?", Nikos mistakenly answered "yes", when what he really meant was just "in the IDE", not ever even thinking that someone would or could mis-associate that with the .NET corporate-umbrella of "Visual".
That was the distinction I was trying to make, in my usual long-winded way.
But what do I know? I'm just a gardener after all.