Eclipse/Netbeans Platform and Plugin architecture (what about in .NET?)

Question

From what I understand, one can develop a stand alone desktop-app using Eclipse or Netbeans platforms (their core SDK and Runtime). Is there any similar project in .NET?

Another question is regarding the Plugin feature in Eclipse and Netbeans. Is it possible to use their platform to create a stand alone application AND use their plugin libraries?

For example: I'd like to write a simple desktop that can be extended by other people if they decided to write the plugins themselves.

Is there anything like this in the .NET world as well?

One last question: would anyone point me to articles, books, or any other literature where I can learn how to design software that can support plugins?

Thanks!

UPDATE : I'd like to clarify that I would also like to re-use if possible (i.e.: rather than coming up with my own platform, I'd like to use Eclipse/Netbeans Platform as a stand-alone application and also exploit their plugin architecture (so, hopefully out of the box with minimum code)

Answer 1

This will help you a lot

http://www.divelements.com/net/articles/plugins/plugins.asp

Answer 2

You may find Caliburn, or Prism, useful for .NET.

Answer 3

Sounds like you are looking for MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework).

The Managed Extensibility Framework (or MEF for short) simplifies the creation of extensible applications. MEF offers discovery and composition capabilities that you can leverage to load application extensions.