Frequently Asked Questions

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

What is Silverlight ?

Silverlight is a new cross-browser, cross-platform implementation of the .NET Framework for building and delivering the next generation of media experiences and Rich Interactive Applications(RIA) for the web. It runs in all popular browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera. The plugin required to run Silverlight is very small in size hence gets installed very quickly.
It is combination of different technolgoies into a single development platform that allows you to select tools and the programming language you want to use. Silverlight integrates seamlessly with your existing Javascript and ASP.NET AJAX code to complement functionality which you have already created.
Silverlight aims to compete with Adobe Flash and the presentation components of Ajax. It also competes with Sun Microsystems’ JavaFX, which was launched a few days after Silverlight.
Currently there are 2 major versions of Silverlight:
Silverlight 1.0 and Silverlight 2.0( previously referred to as version 1.1).

Describe SVN ?

What is static class?

Static classes and class members are used to create data and functions that can be accessed without creating an instance of the class. Static class members can be used to separate data and behavior that is independent of any object identity: the data and functions do not change regardless of what happens to the object. Static classes can be used when there is no data or behavior in the class that depends on object identity.

A class can be declared static (in c#) , indicating that it contains only static members. It is not possible to create instances of a static class using the new keyword. Static classes are loaded automatically by the .NET Framework common language runtime (CLR) when the program or namespace containing the class is loaded.

Use a static class to contain methods that are not associated with a particular object. For example, it is a common requirement to create a set of methods that do not act on instance data and are not associated to a specific object in your code. You could use a static class to hold those methods.

The main features of a static class are:

They only contain static members.
They cannot be instantiated.
They are sealed.
They cannot contain Instance Constructors (C# Programming Guide).

Creating a static class is therefore much the same as creating a class that contains only static members and a private constructor. A private constructor prevents the class from being instantiated.

The advantage of using a static class is that the compiler can check to make sure that no instance members are accidentally added. The compiler will guarantee that instances of this class cannot be created.

Static classes are sealed and therefore cannot be inherited. Static classes cannot contain a constructor, although it is still possible to declare a static constructor to assign initial values or set up some static state.

Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/79b3xss3(VS.80).aspx

What is partial class?

One of the language enhancements in .NET 2.0—available in both VB.NET 2005 and C# 2.0—is support for partial classes. In a nutshell, partial classes mean that your class definition can be split into multiple physical files. Logically, partial classes do not make any difference to the compiler. During compile time, it simply groups all the various partial classes and treats them as a single entity.

One of the greatest benefits of partial classes is that it allows a clean separation of business logic and the user interface (in particular the code that is generated by the visual designer). Using partial classes, the UI code can be hidden from the developer, who usually has no need to access it anyway. Partial classes will also make debugging easier, as the code is partitioned into separate files.

referenced: http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/22603