dotnet

.NET

The .NET ecosystem has 3 runtimes, all of which implement the .NET Standard Library and rest on common build tools, languages, and runtime components

.NET Framework released in 2002, making it the oldest runtime, and runs only on Windows. Two major components:
- Common Language Runtime (CLR) runs managed code and performs garbage collection
- .NET Framework Class Library (also called the Base Class Library) is composed of many classes, interfaces, and value types
.NET Core is cross-platform, open-source, and optimized for performance. Its application host is dotnet.exe
- Core Common Language Runtime (CoreCLR) is more lightweight than that of .NET Framework, but implements Just-In Time compilation
- .NET Core Class Library is smaller than (and actually a subset of) that of .NET Framework
Mono for Xamarin is used for mobile platforms like IOS, Android, and OS X

.NET Standard is a specification of which APIs are available across all these runtimes. It evolved from Portable Class Libraries (PCL) and will eventually replace them. .NET's package manager is NuGet.

An assembly can be compiled to EXE or DLL.