.NET is the big producer of "framework" jargon. The idea behind a framework is to make the life of a developer easier. A framework provides the programmer with ready-made solutions to common problems. For example, what if you, as a programmer, had to develop a big application? You would need to consider security, distribution, versioning, object persistence, database interface, documentation, etc. A framework will provide an already-developed solution for each of these considerations. In effect, the programmer doesn't have to "think about it," it is already built-in to the programming environment. By addressing the considerations at code level the programmer gets a big jump on future work because the framework will "take care" of all the grunt work for you.

The downside is that it increases the learning curve dramatically. Instead of learning the language, you now must also learn the framework. If you are dealing with a "framework" language, like .NET, you must adhere to the framework rules. Throw away all you ideas about how you *used* to do things! You must now follow the framework for things to work properly. If you ever shifted from VB .OLD to VB .NET you will know what I mean...

There is a very good explanation of framework thinking in "Introducing .NET" by David S. Platt.