.NET has underlying it 30 years of carefully-optimised Windows C/C++ code. it makes using all the Windows API really easy. Do you tell people that "an elephant

.NET has underlying it 30 years of carefully-optimised Windows C/C++ code. it makes using all the Windows API really easy. Do you tell people that "an elephant is like a tree", much? I think you are talking about WinForms there. There's a lot more to .Net than targeting the "30 years of Windows C/C++ code" that makes up WinForms. There's WPF on the desktop, and WPF's little brother, silverlight. The's serving web pages via ASP.Net WebForms and MVC variants, And serving data over web services. One could spend several careers using .Net without using as a wrapper for Windows' C Dlls.