BCL (Base Class Library) vs FCL (Framework Class Library)

Question

What\'s the difference between the two? Can we use them interchangeably?

Answer 1

The BCL is a subset of the FCL. BCL honors the ECMA specification for the common language infrastructure. Then Microsoft added all their goodness like data and xml and called it the Framework Class Library. Basically they took the BCL and made it go to 11!