A First Look at SQL Server 2005 for Developers:Introduction

Introduction

    SQL SERVER 2005  contains features that constitute the biggest change since the internal server rewrite of SQL Server 7.This is true from both programmability and data model viewpoints.This chapter describes SQL Server 2005 in terms of .Net programmability,SQL:1999 compliance,user-defined types(UDTs) and XML integration to present a picture of holistic data storage,manipulation and access.

The .Net Runtime and the Microsoft Platform

    .Net is Microsoft's latest environment for running program code.The concept of Managed code,running under control of an execution engine,has quickly permeated all major operating systems,including those from Microsoft..Net is one of the core technologies in Windows Server 2003,Microsoft's latest collection of server platforms.Handheld devices and computer-based mobile phones have quickly acquired .Net-based development environment..Net is an integral part of both Internet Information Server(IIS) and Internet Explorer(IE).ASP.Net runs on Windows 2000 version and up of IIS 5.0;IIS 5.5 and up can load and run .Net code referenced by <object> tags embedded in web pages.Rich .Net Windows application,based on the WinForms library that comes with .Net,may be deployed directly form internet and run on Windows-based desktop.So what is it about .Net that has caused it to catch on?
    Managed code has made .Net so compelling.Development tools produce managed code from the .Net classes.Managed code is so named because it runs in an environment produced by mscoree.dll,the Microsoft common object runtime execution engine,which manages all facets of code execution.These include memory allocation and disposal,class loading,which in traditional execution environment are a major source of programming errors..Net alse manages error recovery,because it has complete information about the runtime environment,it need not always terminate an entire application in face of an error such as out-of-memory condition,but can instead just terminate a part of an application without affecting the rest of it.
    .Net code makes use of code access security that applies a security policy based on the principal running the code,the code itself,and the location from which the code was loaded.The policy determines the permissions the code has in .NET,by default,code that is loaded from the machine on which it runs is given full access to the machine.But code loaded from anywhere else,even if run by an administrator,is run in a sandbox that can access almost nothing on the machine.Prior to .NET,code run by an administrator would generally be given access to the entire machine regardless of its source.The application of policies is controlled by a system administrator and can be very fine grained.
    Multiple versions of .NET,based on different versions of user-written classes or different versions of the .NET base class libraries(BCL),can execute side by side on the same machine.This makes versioning and deployment of revised and fixed classes easier.The .Net "kernel" or execution engine can be written to work with different hardware.A common .NET programming model is usable in x86-based 32-bit processors,like thoes that currently run versions of Windows 9x,Windows NT,Windows 2000 and Windows XP,as well as mobile computers like the iPaq running on radically different processors.The development libraries are independent of chipset.Because .Net classes can be Just-In-Time compiled(JIT compiled),optimization based on processor type can be deffered untill runtime.This allows .Net to integrate more easy with the new versions of 64-bit processors.
    .NET tools compile code into an intermediate language that is the same regardless the programming language used to author the program.Microsoft provides C#,Visual Basic .NET,Managed C++,JavaScript,and J#,a variant of the java language that emits IL.Non-Microsoft languages such as COBOL.NET and Eiffel.NET are also first-class citizens.Code written in different languages can completely interoperate if written to the Common Language Specification.Even though the language features might be radically different--as in managed C++,where managed code and unmanaged code can be mixed in the same program--the feature sets are similar enough that an organization can choose the language that makes the most sense without losing features.In addition,.NET code can interoperate with existing COM code (via COM-callable wrappers and runtime-callable wrappers) and arbitrary
Windows Dynamic Link Libraries(DLLs) through a mechanism known as Platform Invoke(PInvoke).
    So .NET with managed code is so compelling because it improves developer productivity and the reliability and security of applications,provides interoperability between a wide variety of languages,and supports use of legacy Windows code not written using .NET.