What is the .NET Framework 3.0 ?

Yesterday, Tech Ed Barcelona saw raft of announcements, one of which cannot go with out a mention. Almost exactly a year after shipping a major overall to the .NET runtime, packaged as the .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft announced the general availability of the .NET Framework 3.0. To an uneducated observer, this may seem like a the fastest runtime version upgrade ever! I only need to think back to my time at Sun and recall that any discussion of upgrading the Java platform in less that 24 months was immediately ridiculed (and rightly so), so how have Microsoft achieved such a remarkable feat ? A number of people have approached me on this topic today, so I think a quick explanation is in order. The .NET Framework 3.0 is actually .NET Framework 2.0 dressed in the clothing of a parallel development effort formerly known as WinFX. Digging around today, the diagram (courtesy of WIkipedia) gives the best representation of the make up of this release. So in theory, if you've built your application to the core ADO.NET 2.0 or .NET Framework 2.0 interfaces, your application should run smoothly out of the box. If you've been waiting for a formalized version of the Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation or the Windows Cardspace release, you have a wealth of functionality now officially at your disposal. These components will be especially useful if your are targeting either Windows Vista or Office 2007. Once again, if you are focused on the core .NET Framework interfaces, I've yet to uncover anything worth of talking about here, but you can be sure I have already started to dig....