Does one need to know dot net for learning C#?

[Monica Shiralkar]

I am new to C#. I want to know whether it is necessary that one needs to know dot net for learning C#.

thanks

[Stephan van Hulst]

In theory, no. C# is a language and .NET is a platform that runs programs written in .NET bytecode. C# may also be compiled to other languages for other platforms.

In practice, yes. .NET is the standard platform that C# applications run on. You will have a rough time learning and using C# without using the .NET platform libraries. So keep a bookmark in your browser to the .NET API documentation on MSDN.

[Monica Shiralkar]

In practice, yes. .NET is the standard platform that C# applications run on. You will have a rough time learning and using C# without using the .NET platform libraries.

Thanks. Java is run on JDK but we do not need to know too much about JDK to run Java programs on it. Then why is it differently in case of C# and dot Net?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Stephan said you need to know the libraries, not the inner workings of the .NET virtual machine.

[Stephan van Hulst]

I'm going to be pedantic about your wording.

Yes, you DO need to know a large part of the JDK in order to use Java effectively. The standard API is part of the JDK. What you meant was that you don't need to know much about the JVM.

Like Campbell said, it's the same in C#. You don't need to know much about the CLR (Common Language Runtime), which is the .NET VM, but you DO need to know a large part of the FCL (Framework Class Library), which is .NET's standard API.

[Monica Shiralkar]

What you meant was that you don't need to know much about the JVM.

One needs to essentially know that Java programs run on JVM and we need to do installation of JDK after which we can set the path in environment variable. If we know just this much then we are good to start focusing only the actual programs and the code and not much about the JVM.