What is the CLR?

Purpose:

• If a developer is ignorant of how the .Net framework actually sticks together it means they potentially don't care enough about their craft to understand the nuts and bolts of how things work, this means that they will be a code-by-google kind of developer that will not be a great investment.

Potential Answer:
.Net Framework provides runtime environment called Common Language Runtime (CLR).It provides an environment to run all the .Net Programs. The code which runs under the CLR is called Managed Code since it is not native code, but an intermediate language called MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language). Programmers need not to worry on managing the memory if the programs are running under the CLR as it provides memory management, security and thread management.

Programmatically, when our program needs memory, the CLR allocates the memory for scope and de-allocates the memory if the scope is completed.

Language Compilers (e.g. C#, VB.Net, J#) will convert the Code/Program to Microsoft Intermediate Language(MSIL) using the Common Type System (CTS) and the rules of the Common Language Specification (CLS). This MSIL code is then converted on a Just-in-time compiler to Native Code by the CLR.