The rest of this chapter will highlight some of the more commonly used APIs within the .NET Framework and rate each of these APIs using the Evaluation framework described previously.
The Base Class Library (BCL) is the heart of the .NET Framework. It contains base types, collections, and APIs to work with events and attributes; console, file, and network I/O; and text, XML, threads, application domains, security, debugging, tracing, serialization, interoperation with native COM and Win32 APIs, and the other core capabilities that most .NET applications need. The BCL is contained within the mscorlib.dll, System.dll, and System.Core.dll assemblies.
The mscorlib.dll assembly is loaded during the
CLR Bootstrap (not by the CLR Loader), contains all nonoptional APIs and types, and is universally available in every .NET process, such as Silverlight, Windows Phone, and ASP.NET. Optional BCL APIs and types are available in System.dll and System.Core.dll, which...