Approaches to Web Development for Bioinformatics

Developing Applications with C#

In this section:

• Introduction
• Getting Started
• Types in C#
• Basic Text Processing
• More on Objects, Classes, and Structs
• The Singleton Pattern, Static Data, and Constants
• Properties and Indexers
• Delegates
• Events
• Generics

Introduction

C# is an application development language from Microsoft. In this section I will introduce some of the language basics to get a feel for what C# is all about, key differences with other languages, and how it might fit into a web application. The section Developing Web Applications with ASP.NET discusses the use of C# in the ASP.NET framework. The section Bioinformatics Tools using ASP.NET discusses application of the principles described here to bioinformatics. For those wishing to go further see the C# Programming section of the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) library ⁴³ or a useful set of tutorials for getting started with the basics at csharpcomputing.com⁴⁷.

The tools and documentation to develop with C# are provide on the MSDN⁴³ web site. At a minimum you need the .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package and the .NET Framework 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK). In terms of tools, Visual Studio .Net, although not strictly necessary, is arguably the best integrated development environment (IDE) on the market for any language is a huge boost to productivity for serious developers. On the other hand it is a very complex tool to use for those of those that are infrequent developers for the .Net platform.

Unlike most of the other tools discussed in this article Microsoft development tools cost money. The cost can add up, especially when you consider both development tools and servers for running in production, and can tie you more deeply into the Windows platform. Even joining the Microsoft Developer Network requires you to get a Live account. On the positive side, the platform is relatively comprehensive and friendly to develop with. In C# Microsoft has addressed many of the key problems with their previous application development model, including

• A lightweight programming option for development. Unlike previous Microsoft programming environments, you can easily edit files in whatever editor you like, even Notepad, and then compile and run them from a command line. This makes it easy to get started while still having the option to use the power of Visual Studio.
• A lightweight program execution model. When the C# code is small the executable files are only a few bytes. This makes them suitable for transporting over the network in web applications with rich clients. C# code compiles into an executable file, which is interpreted by a virtual machine.
• A language designed for serious application development. In the past Visual Basic was seen by many as too simple for serious application development and 'real' developers wanted to develop in C++. However, Microsoft's C++ implementation and their Active X component model were too complex for many.

Aside from these points and compared with other application programming languages outside of the Microsoft platform C# gives very good integration with Windows. For example, C# programs can be compiled into shared libraries (dll's) that can be dynamically linked into other executable programs. C# programs can easily integrate with the Microsoft Office suite of products. C# programs can integrate with Active Directory and Windows desktop authentication. This depth and ease of integration is probably the biggest reason for adoption of the Microsoft software development platform.

See the page C# Resources on this web site for a list of popular and user suggested C# resources.

Please send ideas and opinions by email at alexamies@gmail.com.