When developers work within an established framework, they should be aware of certain nuances, especially those between managed and unmanaged code. This question allows you to display your knowledge of working within the framework and to differentiate that knowledge from working in other coding environments.

Answering this question tests the depths of your programming knowledge and lets the interviewer know you are skilled enough to handle the various environments in the enterprise development lifecycle.

Example: “Managed code is managed by and runs inside the CLR and needs the .NET Framework to execute. Unmanaged code, on the other hand, does not need the CLR to execute. Unmanaged code is formulated from a language independent of the .NET Framework and therefore uses its independent environment for execution and compiling.”

Other questions an interviewer could ask to make sure you understand nuanced features of .NET include:

Explain the difference between function and stored procedure.
What are the different types of assemblies?
What are the elements of an assembly?
What are the two types of cookies in ASP.NET?