.NET Framework become a blockbuster right after it's release for many reasons. Part of them are:
- good architecture
- unified dev style independent from the application type
- consistent API
- constantly improved APIs and libraries that solves most common tasks and minimize doing same thing over and over again (take for example writing WinForms application with VC++ 6.0 - there you had to write code for the window and buttons; you had to call a method just to move data from variables to UI controls and vice versa)
This comes with the price - the price of the size!
3-4 year ago it was possible for one to cover all aspects of dev types. For instance I still have no time to ramp up with .NET 3.0 (WF, WCF, WPF, Cardspace) although I had some basic ideas about it but still nothing in production. The funny part is that I am very acknowledged with .NET 3.5 (even wrote a tutorial ;) )
Is it huge or I am getting old???
This is how big is .NET Framework in numbers:
I feel this when beginner devs are asking me where to start from.
Thanks, Brad for this interesting info! Brad Abrams asked in his post: "Any guesses on how many types will be in .NET Framework 4.0?"