c# - What exactly is "managed" code?

Question

I've been writing C / C++ code for almost twenty years, and I know Perl, Python, PHP, and some Java as well, and I'm teaching myself JavaScript. But I've never done any .NET, VB, or C# stuff. What exactly does managed code mean?

Wikipedia describes it simply as

Code that executes under the management of a virtual machine

and it specifically says that Java is (usually) managed code, so

• why does the term only seem to apply to C# / .NET?
• Can you compile C# into a .exe that contains the VM as well, or do you have to package it up and give it to another .exe (a la java)?

In a similar vein,

• is .NET a language or a framework, and what exactly does "framework" mean here?

OK, so that's more than one question, but for someone who's been in the industry as long as I have, I'm feeling rather N00B-ish right now...

Answer 1

When you compile C# code to a .exe, it is compiled to Common Intermediate Language(CIL) bytecode. Whenever you run a CIL executable it is executed on Microsofts Common Language Runtime(CLR) virtual machine. So no, it is not possible to include the VM withing your .NET executable file. You must have the .NET runtime installed on any client machines where your program will be running.

To answer your second question, .NET is a framework, in that it is a set of libraries, compilers and VM that is not language specific. So you can code on the .NET framework in C#, VB, C++ and any other languages which have a .NET compiler.

https://bitbucket.org/brianritchie/wiki/wiki/.NET%20Languages

The above page has a listing of languages which have .NET versions, as well as links to their pages.