Jim,

Here's the deal. .NET is another one of those all-encompassing marketing terms. More technically, however, are some of the parts that you've heard about:

1) CLR = Common Language Runtime. This runs any and all .NET code, regardless of source language. This includes running any of the framework classes. And, very important: it is a Just In Time compiler. This means that your .NET assemblies do NOT have to be compiled before they are executed. Instead, the IL generated from your source code compiler is compiled as each method is invoked. This allows the CLR to run atop any OS or hardware and to be optimized for the current platform. Right now, the only OS is Windows (surprise!) but they do have optimizations for the Pentium IV processor, for example. Your app doesn't need to know about these optimizations, however, which is a nice benefit. Any new OS service or processor would require a revised CLR, but that's all is necessary (in theory, at least - We'll have to wait to see this last point).

2) Visual Studio.NET = an IDE for creating .NET applications. Not to be confused with the .NET framework. You don't need VS.NET to develop apps, but it sure makes it a whole heckuva lot easier. :)

3) .NET Framework = set of "unified classes" that are essentially wrappers around useful functions and OS services. For example, you can find classes that convert strings or classes that allow you to read and write to the event logs. ASP.NET is essentially a set of framework classes. So is ADO.NET. VB.NET and C# both use the framework, and as many have pointed out, much of the framework is written in C# and I also believe C++ as well.

Hope this helps clarify things.

>I see, I think.
>
>So one might correctly conclude that all that .NET really is is:
>1) the addition of more, and especially more public, facilities to the base OSs;
>2) the revision of significant portions of the OSs;
>3) the introduction of a few new tools to better exploit the above-mentioned things.
>
>Would that be close? [realizing, of course, that the word 'all' used above is not meant to imply a small amount of work by MS]