.NET

See also: Appendix:Variations of "net"

English

Etymology

Usually said to be from network.[1] Called in early press announcements Next Generation Windows Services before this name was chosen.[2] According to Justin Grant, who was part of the team on the Microsoft campus, the name was chosen because it:[3]

  • mirrored the domain suffix [.net] of (at the time) every ISP, so was intended to remind users that "web-enabling your software" was the core scenario being targetted by this work
  • was more approachable to business types and CIOs than geekier names like "Universal Runtime" or "COM+ 2.0"
  • had practical benefits like: being short, easy to spell, globalized well, could leverage already-owned domain names for every Microsoft product, etc.
  • actually passed legal/trademark review (surprisingly difficult!)

So it was intended to mean something, but more so by connotation rather than directly abbreviating or describing something.

Proper noun

.NET

  1. (computing, Microsoft) A set of Microsoft products and services – primarily the .NET Framework, which permits the development of software for a virtual machine in any programming language that is CLI-compliant (i.e., conforms with the Common Language Infrastructure).

Derived terms

  • ASP.NET

Translations

References

  1. ^ Stanley Siu (10 March 2009) “Why was .NET called .NET?” (answer), in Stack Overflow‎[1], archived from the original on 12 July 2010.
  2. ^ James Kovacs (7 September 2007) “C#/.NET History Lesson”, in James Kovacs' Weblog‎[2], archived from the original on 6 March 2009.
  3. ^ Justin Grant (29 September 2009) “What does .NET stand for? Is it an acronym?” (answer), in Stack Overflow‎[3], archived from the original on 3 October 2009.

Further reading

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