NP74 language-agnostic

Thank you for your explanation, Alan.

“Officially speaking, the term used to describe the code targeting the .NET runtime is managed code. The binary unit that contains the managed code is termed an assembly (more details in just a bit).”

Above sentence is in a book. What is .NET runtime meant by? Is author meaning common language runtime (CLR) or something else?

Anyone knows please explain.

Thank you for your help, Alan.

Yes, that's essentially correct.

The Common Intermediate Language (CIL) produced by .NET compilers has been designed to be processor-independent.

The Just in time compiler (JIT) then takes the CIL and converts it to machine code which can be run immediately on the processor for which the runtime is currently installed.

All .NET- compliant languages are processor independent. That means JET compiler imbedded in the .NET platform have a capability to compile a machine language that is compatible with the particular processor.   

I wish to know whether my above understanding is correct. Anyone knows confirm it please.

Thank you for your explanation, Alan.

The literal meaning of agnostic is unknown or unknowable.

So, when a programming environment such as .NET is said to be language-agnostic, it means that the runtime does not know (or care) in which language a program has been written. This is because all .NET compilers produce MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) which is then executed by the runtime by converting it to native code 'on the fly'. However, there is no way of telling from the MSIL what the original programming language was, nor does it matter.

Currently, there are more than 20 languages in which .NET programs can be written.