The .NET Compilation Stages:

The Code written in .NET isn't compiled directly to the executable, instead .NET uses two steps to compile the code. First, the code is compiled to an Intermediate Language called Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). Second, the compiled code will be recompiled with the Common Language Runtime ( CLR ), which converts the code to the machine code. The basic Idea of this two stages was to make the code language independence.