Today’s issue of Layman’s Terms is going to look at some of the terminology related to application development.
Native Applications are programs coded in the “native language” of an operating system. For example, the native language of iOS is Objective C. Any applications coded in that language are considered native applications. Consequently, a Non-Native application is anything that was originally coded in a different language from the platform it’s being run on.
Native Wrapping refers to a technique in which non-native applications are run on an operating platform by essentially being ‘masked’ in a shell of native code. While the ‘core’ of the application is still programmed in its native language, it’ll run on other platforms- though it won’t always run particularly well, since the system it’s been ported to may not have all of the features the original application made use of.
Intermediate Language is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s designed to be a ‘middleman’ of sorts between a programming language and Machine Code, the most basic language of computers. They’re executed by a translation program. Usually, Intermediate Languages are used in conjunction with Managed Code, and the Common Language Runtime.
The Common Language Runtime is essentially an ‘operating system within an operating system’. It’s part of Microsoft’s .NET Framework, and is responsible for executing virtually every application written in Managed Code. It ‘manages’ these applications, providing security and other services while the application runs.
Managed Code is any programming language which relies on the Common Language Runtime. The Managed code is generally compiled into an intermediate language. All the details of that language are stored in a file (the assembly) which is then executed by the Common language Runtime. Managed Code was a term coined by Microsoft when they first developed the .NET Framework.
Unmanaged Code is any programming language not developed specifically for the CLR and Microsoft’s .NET Framework.
Do note that in the case of managed and unmanaged code, there are a few programming languages that fit the bill for both.
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