On 1 April 2003, ISO/IEC JTC (Joint Technical Committee) 1, Information technology, published international standards for a revolutionary programming language called C~# (pronounced "C-Sharp"), and for the so-called Common Language Infrastructure, or CLI. Though it may have taken place on April Fools' Day, and C~# may be an odd musical-sounding name, this was no joke. The unanimous adoption by ISO/IEC of these ECMA standards is a momentous moment in the history of ECMA International, a standards-setting body formed more than 40 years ago, and a milestone in the standardization of programming languages. This article will, I hope, show the considerable benefits that these standards are going to bring and for whom, how they are going to change the way we create and use software, and how they do this. I will also attempt to describe the requirement they address, the parties in the software community who gain from their existence, who is going to be implementing them and how.
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