Program coded in .Net

Question

What does it generally mean when a programmer says his program/application was "coded in .Net"?

When I think of .Net I think of C# and Visual Basic. I don't usually think of any other language on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CLI_languages

Answer 1

It means that the program/application runs on the .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework includes a large library and provides language interoperability across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in the Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling.

C# and VB.NET are certainly two of the more common languages used on the .NET Framework, but they're not required. There are several other first-class languages that would all be good choices, including F#, Boo, Nemerle, and even a .NET port of Clojure (a LISP variant).

F# is a functional/object-oriented language derived from the ML family of languages, especially OCaml.

Boo is a Python-like language with an emphasis on compiler pipeline extensibility that makes it an ideal platform for experimenting with domain-specific languages.

Nemerle is the "kitchen sink" of .NET languages, supporting several different programming paradigms. JetBrains plans on making Nemerle a first-class citizen.

And of course, there are the "Iron" languages: IronRuby, IronPython and IronScheme.

All of these languages benefit from access to the broad spectrum of capabilities present in the .NET Framework class libraries.