Summary
In this chapter, we touched on the basics of Perl programming within the .NET environment. The combination of Perl and the .NET extensions is called PerlNET. Pragmas were introduced to simplify program code. All classes in .NET are divided into namespaces. System namespace exposes Console class (among many others), which provides static methods for performing input/output operations and can be used in any PerlNET programs. These methods may be replaced by Core Perl statements (print and <STDIN>). All other standard Perl constructions and features are supported in PerlNET as well.
There are several ways to write an application. You may choose a script-like form or an object-oriented approach by supplying interface definitions and explicitly defining the Main function.
.NET has a wide range of classes that may be incorporated into our programs. We saw how to use classes, which provide static methods: Console, Math, and Convert. In the next chapter, we will learn in detail about the .NET components and review the most popular and useful classes.