1.1 C# and .NET

In the past, you might have learned a language like C or Java without much concern about the platform on which you would be programming. These cross-platform languages were as comfortable on a Unix box as they were on a PC running Windows.

C#, however, was created specifically for .NET. While .NET may become cross-platform some day soon — a Unix port is reportedly in the offing — for now the overwhelming majority of .NET programs will be written to run on a machine running .NET. At the time of this writing, that means a Windows machine.