What is the difference between a class library and a framework

Peter Gfader picture Peter Gfader · Apr 7, 2009 · Viewed 12.6k times · Source

I hear the whole day the terms class library, base class library, Framework, ...
What highlights a framework and what a base class library?

Answer

Jochen Walter picture Jochen Walter · Apr 7, 2009

The distinguishing feature between a class library and a software framework is that in a framework, the flow of control is not determined by the user´s code, but by the framework.

This is also known as Hollywood principle (don´t call us, we call you).

By the way, there is also a nice Wikipedia article on this topic.