The Common Intermediate Language (CIL) is the core language of .NET. Although .NET developers often use a high-level language (such as C# or VB .NET) to develop their systems, they can use CIL to do anything allowed by.NET specificationswhich is not the case for C# and VB .NET. Understanding how CIL works will provide you with a deep, language-independent insight into the core parts of .NET. This knowledge is essential for creating dynamic types, a powerful part of the .NET Framework.

In CIL Programming: Under the Hood of .NET, Jason Bock offers an in-depth tutorial on programming in CIL. First, Bock discusses the basics of .NET assemblies and manifests. He then shows how to create assemblies in .NETincluding the ilasm directives and CIL opcodes, and how these are used to define assemblies, classes, field, methods, and method definitions. Bock also covers the ways in which C#, VB .NET, and other non-Microsoft languages emit CIL, and how they differ. Finally, he reveals how developers can create dynamic assemblies at runtime via the Emitter classes.

After reading this guide, you will gain a better understanding of CIL and how to program directly into it. CIL Programming: Under the Hood of .NET is a must-have on every .NET developer's desk!