Brad Abrams - .NET framework standard library annotated reference : base class library and extended numerics library

When I began my standards career back in August 2000, ECMA and ISO meant as much to me as the sequence of letters in the daily newspaper jumble. I hadn't a clue on how the standards process actually worked, from either a technical or a political perspective. Now, as I write this, I am chair of the ECMA committee that oversees the standardization of programming and scripting languages. In addition, I am convener of the task group within the committee that is responsible for the standardization of the CLI, on which, of course, the content of this book is based.

In 2000, Microsoft publicly introduced its .NET vision. A key component of this vision is the .NET Framework, which includes a set of class libraries and a virtual machine (runtime engine) to execute next-generation applications.

In September 2000, Microsoft, co-sponsored by Intel and Hewlett-Packard, formally submitted a core subset of the .NET Framework to ECMA International, a renowned international standards organization. The submission was entitled the Common Language Infrastructure, or CLI. The meeting was held in Bristol, England, with representatives from companies such as IBM and Sun Microsystems. Microsoft presented the CLI to ECMA's Programming and Scripting Languages Technical Committee, or TC39. It was decided by unanimous consent that the CLI would be added to the program of work for TC39 and that a new task group, called the TG3, would be responsible for the standardization effort. One might ask what happened to TG1 and TG2. Before the submission of the CLI, the TC39 was responsible for the standardization of only ECMAScript. There were no task groups, per se. When the CLI was approved for work, ECMAScript was moved to a newly formed TG1. C#, which was submitted at the same time as the CLI, introduced the TG2. The TG3 was reserved for the CLI. There is now even a TG4 responsible for the standardization of the Eiffel programming language and a TG5 chartered to standardize a binding between ISO C++ and the CLI.

There are two primary facets to the CLI standardization process within ECMA, the virtual machine and the class libraries. The virtual machine provides the environment necessary to execute applications written for the CLI. The class libraries provide the core infrastructure to enable developers to create libraries and applications for execution on top of the virtual machine.

I am involved in both facets of the standardization process, but I have enjoyed the class library aspect the most. This is primarily because I have a better understanding of that level of the development stack than I do the lower layers, such as where the virtual machine would lie. And since Brad Abrams was the Microsoft lead in the class library standardization effort, my good relationship with him began.

The set of class libraries submitted to ECMA International are, from a .NET Framework perspective, relatively small. However, they definitely provide the foundation upon which all other class libraries are built. The class library was segmented into what the standard calls profiles. The kernel profile consists of the base types that would be expected to exist in modern programming languages (as well as types to assist compilers for those languages). String and Int32 are examples of such types. The kernel profile must be implemented in order to claim conformance to the standard. The compact profile consists of the kernel profile, plus some types necessary to implement basic Web services-type applications while maintaining a small enough footprint to fit on standard compact, connected devices. Then there are some types that do not fit any profile, but can be implemented as part of any profile. These include types dealing with floating point numbers and multidimensional arrays. Brad's book concentrates on the base types that are part of the kernel profile, as well as the extended numerics (e.g., floating point and decimal). For information on the concept behind the segmentation of the class libraries into profiles, see Partition IV of the ECMA Standard ECMA-335, also published as ISO/IEC 23271. The ECMA Standard can be downloadedand freely copiedfree of charge from http://www.ecma-international.org.