Questions on XSLT and xPath in .NET
Define XSLT.
XSLT language is used for transforming XML documents into XHTML documents. It also transforms XML into another XML document.
What is XPATH?
XPath is a language that is used to navigate through XML documents.It can find information in an XML document like elements and attributes.
Define XMLReader Class.
The XMLReader Class (Assembly: System.Xml.dll) represents a reader that provides fast, non-cached, forward-only access to XML data.
Define XMLValidatingReader class.
The XMLValidatingReader class (Assembly: System.Xml.dll) represents a reader that provides:
- Document type definition (DTD),
- XML-Data Reduced (XDR) schema, and
- XML Schema definition language (XSD) validation
Explain the concepts of CTS and CLS(Common Language Specification).
CTS
When different languages are integrated and want to communicate, it is certain that the languages have their own data types and different declaration styles. CTS define how these different variables are declared and used in run time. E.g. VB offers an Integer data type while C++ offers long data type. Using CTS, these data types are converted to System32 which itself a data type of CLS.
CLS
Any language(s) that intend to use the Common Language Infrastructure needs to communicate with other CLS-Compliant language. This communication is based on set of rules laid by CLS. These rules define a subset of CTS.
.NET interview: What is a CLR (Common Language Runtime)?
Often there is a need for different languages to communicate with each other at run time. For e.g. A class may be written in one language and its derived class may be written in a different language. Common Language Runtime is a run time environment for .NET. These different languages are integrated and can communicate easily because language compilers and tools that target the runtime use a common type system defined by the runtime.
Features or Functionalities offered by CLR:-
- Garbage collection for managing life of objects.
- Enables Cross language inheritance as explained in example above.
- Syntax and keywords similar to C and C++
Interview Question: Observations between VB.NET and VC#.NET?
Choosing a programming language depends on your language experience and the scope of the application you are building. While small applications are often created using only one language, it is not uncommon to develop large applications using multiple languages.
For example, if you are extending an application with existing XML Web services, you might use a scripting language with little or no programming effort. For client-server applications, you would probably choose the single language you are most comfortable with for the entire application. For new enterprise applications, where large teams of developers create components and services for deployment across multiple remote sites, the best choice might be to use several languages depending on developer skills and long-term maintenance expectations.
The .NET Platform programming languages - including Visual Basic .NET, Visual C#, and Visual C++ with managed extensions, and many other programming languages from various vendors - use .NET Framework services and features through a common set of unified classes. The .NET unified classes provide a consistent method of accessing the platform's functionality. If you learn to use the class library, you will find that all tasks follow the same uniform architecture. You no longer need to learn and master different API architectures to write your applications.
In most situations, you can effectively use all of the Microsoft programming languages. Nevertheless, each programming language has its relative strengths and you will want to understand the features unique to each language. The following sections will help you choose the right programming language for your application.
Visual Basic .NET
Visual Basic .NET is the next generation of the Visual Basic language from Microsoft. With Visual Basic you can build .NET applications, including Web services and ASP.NET Web applications, quickly and easily. Applications made with Visual Basic are built on the services of the common language runtime and take advantage of the .NET Framework.
Visual Basic has many new and improved features such as inheritance, interfaces, and overloading that make it a powerful object-oriented programming language. Other new language features include free threading and structured exception handling. Visual Basic fully integrates the .NET Framework and the common language runtime, which together provide language interoperability, garbage collection, enhanced security, and improved versioning support. A Visual Basic support single inheritance and creates Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) as input to native code compilers.
Visual Basic is comparatively easy to learn and use, and Visual Basic has become the programming language of choice for hundreds of thousands of developers over the past decade. An understanding of Visual Basic can be leveraged in a variety of ways, such as writing macros in Visual Studio and providing programmability in applications such as Microsoft Excel, Access, and Word.
ASP.NET Features and Advantages
ASP.NET is a compiled, .NET-based environment; you can code the applications in any .NET compatible language, including Visual Basic .NET, C#, and JScript .NET. Additionally, the entire .NET Framework is available to any ASP.NET application.
ASP.NET has been designed with scalability in mind, with features specifically tailored to improve performance in clustered and multiprocessor environments. With built in Windows authentication and per-application configuration, you can be assured that your applications are secure. 
You can use Web Forms or XML Web services when creating an ASP.NET application, or combine both depending on your need. Both of them allows you to use authentication schemes, cache frequently used data, or customize application's configuration.
ASP.Net allows programmers to develop web applications that interface with a database. The advantage of ASP.Net is that it is object-oriented and has many programming tools that allow for faster development and more functionality.
There are 2 aspects of ASP.Net make it fast, compiled code and caching.
Prior to DOT Net Framework, the code was interpreted into machine language when your website visitor views your page. Now, with ASP.Net the code is compiled into machine language before your visitor ever comes to your site.
Caching is the storage of information that will be reused in a memory location for faster access in the future. ASP.Net allows programmers to set up pages or areas of pages that are commonly reused to be cached for a set period of time to improve the performance of web applications. I have used caching in many of my applications with few records, static and frequently used data.
ASP.Net automatically recovers from memory leaks and errors to make sure that your website is always available to your visitors. Programmers can actually write their code in any of the supported .Net languages like VB.Net, C#, and JScript.Net. In the Learning series, we will be using C# since it’s the widely used language across many companies.
An ASP.NET Framework application is deployed to a server simply by copying the necessary files to the server. No server restart is required, even to deploy or replace running compiled code.
Security is one of the major advantage, you can use built in Windows authentication and also you can set the security configuration by application.
