Visual C# .NET Dictionary - R

Rapid Application Development

Rapid Application Development (RAD) refers to a set of software development methodologies designed to facilitate rapid development and delivery of software systems.

Refactoring

A disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of source code by altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is a disciplined method of cleaning up source code that minimizes chances of introducing new bugs. In a nutshell, refactoring improves the design of source code after it has already been written.

Reference type

Variable which holds a reference (pointer) to data rather than containing the actual data. Reference types include array, class, delegate, and interface.

Reflection

System.Reflection enables an application to discover information about classes in order to access class members, create new types at runtime (System.Reflection.Emit), or modify its own behavior by calling methods at runtime using late-binding and dynamic invocation techniques.

Reflection Library

A .NET Framework library which, based on a type description, supports creation of type instances, examination of type structure, and type method invocation.

Regular expression

A regular expression—also called regex, regexes, regexp, regexps, regexen—is a string that describes a set of strings to be found or altered according to certain syntax rules. The regular expression pattern matching process is supported by programming languages, text editors, and utilities. A regular expression may include alphanumeric characters, met characters, and operators. Most .NET languages—including Visual C#—support regular expressions.

Relational Database Management System

RDBMS is a database management system (DBMS) with the ability to access data organized in tabular files—tables—that can be related to each other by a common field—key. RDBMS can access data items from different tables to create new tables—join.

Invented in the early 1970s by an IBM funded team lead by Dr. Edmund F. Codd, RDBMS embodies the Relational Model which is derived from principles of relational algebra. Modern RDBMS include DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase.

Remoting

.NET technology enabling objects in different application domains to communicate across a remoting boundary. Remoting objects may be on the same or different computers or networks. Remoting is the .NET equivalent of Distributed COM (DCOM).

Representational State Transfer

REST—Representational State Transfer—is a simple approach to Web services using low level protocols like HTML and XML. Contrast with higher level approaches like SOAP.

Resource

Addressable data available to an application. Resources may include data streams, documents, files, images, message queues, query result sets, and strings. Addressable application services like Web services may, also, be referred to as resources.

Resource Description Framework

RDF is a general purpose language for representing information on the Web.

Resource File Generator Tool

.NET programming tool (Resgen.exe) for converting resource information stored in text files or XML files (.resx ) to .resource files to be embedded in an executable or to be compiled into satellite assemblies with the Assembly Linking Utility.

Rosario

Code name for the follow-on Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) release to Orcas. Named after a resort on Orcas Island.

Rosetta

Code name for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services.

RSS

Acronym of either RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary. An extension of the RDF language, RSS is a standardized XML schema for news article syndication.

Runtime Callable Wrapper

RCW is a metadata wrapper allowing .NET applications to call COM components. For non-OLE automation interfaces, a custom RCW must be written to map the COM types to .NET Framework-compatible types. For OLE automation interfaces, an RCW is a .NET assembly generated from the COM component's type library using the Type Library Importer tool.

Runtime debugger

MSIL source-level debugging utility (CorDbg.exe).

Runtime host

Software runtime environment which manages the execution of application code and provides various services to the application. The Java runtime host is the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The .NET runtime host is the Common Language Runtime (CLR).

Runtime Infrastructure Library

A .NET Framework library which supports services required by compilers to target the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and contains the facilities needed for dynamically loading types from a stream in the specified file format.