.NET Core Development

Let’s start with the dot net core overview and see its significance in the software development industry today. Dot NET Core is a powerful developer platform to create applications for multiple operating systems and environments. You can use it to develop a mobile app, Windows app, cloud app, IoT app, microservices app, and many other types of applications.

Dot Net Core is a forked-out version of the .NET Framework, so it offers a subset of features.

While .NET Framework is exclusively for Windows systems, .Net Core is compatible with other systems as well. There are lots of differences between dot NET Core and NET Framework and they serve different purposes as well.

Microsoft built dot net core upon the .NET platform with features to build user-friendly and robust applications for diverse platforms. As per statics from Stack Overflow, .net is the most popular framework for software development for developers among the top libraries and frameworks.

.NET Core is a cross-system developer platform. Microsoft has been experimenting with its .NET platform for a long time resulting in different frameworks for software development. There are many frameworks under the .NET family now including .NET Framework, ASP.NET, .NET Core, .NET Standard, and more.

A quick dot net core history:

• Microsoft initially launched .NET Framework, a proprietary framework, especially for Windows. Later, it realized the significance of cross-platform support and came up with .NET Core which was created upon the .NET Framework with support for multiple systems.
• However, there was a major change in .NET Core as well after the launch of .NET Core 3.1 as the company dropped the “Core” branding and skipped 4.x versions. So, after this release, .NET Core started to be called .NET, which is .NET 5, and later versions of Dot NET Core. Microsoft made this change because it wanted .NET to be the main implementation of its .NET Platform.

Moreover, Dot Net Core (.NET Core) is a major implementation of .NET which is open-source, cross-platform, and available for free. Dot NET Core runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems.

It is a multi-purpose developer platform used to build a wide range of applications like mobile apps, desktop apps, games, cloud apps, IoT apps, and web apps. The following image shows the complete Dot NET platform.

The architecture of a software platform is an important thing you need to know to understand how different components work together. An architecture defines how the developers will interact with the system.

Aside from diverse dot net core features, the architecture helps to build resilient websites and apps. There are multiple layers in the .NET Core tech stack, and it consists of tools, libraries, runtimes, and frameworks to develop a wide range of software solutions.

The following are the major components of .NET Core architecture.

Core CLR

Core CLR is for .NET Core and .NET 5 and later versions. CLR is for Common Language Runtime, and it refers to the runtime of .NET Core and .NET Framework. Core CLR provides an environment where dot net applications can run without any dependencies or platform restrictions.

It performs memory management and allocates memory to workloads. In essence, it is a Virtual Machine that executes apps and compiles code. This is similar to Java Virtual Machine in functionality but there are many differences between .NET Core and Java programming language.

Native Runtime for .NET

Dot Net Native Runtime comprises libraries that are natively supported on Windows. Besides this, it provides AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation instead of the previous JIT (Just-in-Time) compilation which improves the execution speed and provides faster software performance. This is because AOT compiles the code before executing an app on a machine, thus the speed is way better than with JIT compilation.

Base Class Library

BCL or Base Class Library is a set of low-end class libraries comprising Microsoft.* and System.* namespaces. These libraries are the foundation for many frameworks that are used to build web solutions and apps for various platforms. It is a general-purpose class library.

ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core is one of the app models or frameworks that sit above the Base Class Library layer of Dot NET Core. It’s a popular web development framework. ASP is an acronym for Active Server Pages and it’s a server-side scripting language. It was replaced with ASP.NET which was further replaced by ASP.NET Core and uses C# for scripting.

The .NET Core platform allows developers to build full-stack web applications with the use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and C# with ASP.NET Core.

ASP.NET Core offers Blazor for building interactive web UIs and several other features that make it an excellent web development framework. From fast and scalable web solutions to high-end security, there are many reasons to choose ASP NET Core for web development.

Besides ASP.NET Core there are other frameworks or app models like .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI), Entity Framework, Windows Presentation Foundation, and Windows Forms.

.NET Core is Modularized with NuGet

The code for .NET Core is delivered through NuGet, which is Microsoft’s package manager tool. NuGet manages how .NET packages are created, consumed, and hosted. However, .NET Core isn’t available as one NuGet package, rather it is modularized and comes with different packages.

Open-source Framework: .NET Core is an open-source framework which means the source code is available in the public domain. The code is available on GitHub and there is a community that contributes to the framework’s improvement and advancement. The framework is available under Apache 2 and MIT licenses.

Support multiple architectures: Dot NET Core is supported on multiple CPU architectures like Arm64, x86, and x64.

Multiple programming languages: In .NET programming developers can choose from a set of different languages to develop their applications. Developers can use F#, C#, or VB (Visual Basic) for creating various applications.

Modular architecture: .NET Core has a modular structure that can be managed with the NuGet package manager. NuGet packages enable developers to add necessary functionalities to a dot net core project. The .NET Core library is also a NuGet package.

Flexible deployment: There are different ways in which a dot net application can be deployed depending on how it has to be accessed and used. Therefore, you can deploy your application either system-wide or user-wide. Apart from this, the .NET application can also be deployed with Docker containers.

Command Line Tools: .NET Core is packed with many CLI (Command-line Interface) tools that help developers in the development process and continuous integration.

Support: There is great support for .NET Core from Microsoft and a community that contributes to its advancement and new releases of this framework.

.NET Core offers lots of features that allow you to create different types of applications. You can choose dotnet core development to build applications with next-gen features and functionalities.

Dependency Injection

It is one of the crucial features of dotnet core and ASP.NET Core framework as well. Dependency Injection (DI) is a software design pattern that follows the Dependency Inversion Principle of class-based programming. In essence, DI focuses on creating Classes that depend on Interfaces or Abstract Classes instead of their implementations.

Since ASP.NET Core supports DI, you can create independent Classes that simplify your code. With dependency injection, you can create loosely coupled applications that offer more flexibility and ease of development.

Filters

One of the built-in Dotnet Core features is Filters. The Filters feature is used with ASP.NET Core to execute code before and after specific stages when processing requests. This feature is used to handle the following tasks:

Response Caching: A request to the server is terminated early to provide a cached response. Response caching is storing the information received after a request and reusing the same for later requests.

Authorization: It makes sure that users don’t have unauthorized access to resources.

It is also possible to create custom filters besides using the built-in ones. These custom filters can be used to work with caching, configuration, error handling, etc. Filters help to avoid duplicity of code.

Globalization and Localization

With globalization and localization, the feature of dotnet core is aimed to develop applications and websites that fit different cultures. You can create applications and websites with localized dates, information, and content. Your application or website can embrace local cultures and provide a personalized experience.

.NET Core allows you to customize your application or website based on different languages and locales. Hence, with ASP.NET you can build multilingual websites and use .NET Core to create applications that reach a wider audience with localized content and experience.

LINQ (Language-Integrated Query)

It is a collection of technologies that depends on the integration of the capability to query databases into the C# language. In short, these are technologies that allow data query ability within C#. As a result, LINQ in C# is a construct like a Class in the language that allows developers to connect to different databases and access data. This is a data querying API in C# to access data from diverse sources like SQL servers, objects, XML, etc.

.NET is a robust developer platform with a variety of tools and frameworks. There are lots of uses of dot net core because of the different frameworks and tools it offers. You can leverage this platform for a variety of projects regardless of the targeted platform.

Multi-system Implementation

Due to cross-platform capabilities, dot net core is popular for creating apps for desktops and mobiles. So, choosing .NET development is beneficial in developing apps that you want to be supported on multiple systems.

You can create engaging and feature-rich applications with .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI). With this framework or app model, you can build native Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS applications. This is cost-effective because you can build apps for multiple platforms from a single codebase.

MAUI is open source and advanced to Xamarin.Forms to cater to both mobile and desktop users. It has redesigned UI controls that provide better performance and extensibility. .NET MAUI combines the APIs for Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS into a single API to generate a single codebase for write-once run-anywhere.

Microservices Architecture

For modern businesses software and applications are integral. However, their IT teams need to ensure frequent, reliable, and rapid delivery of software to stay in the game. Choosing the right software development architecture is vital to achieving this objective.

Microservices are one of the best architectures to develop software because they are flexible and easy to deploy. Businesses are adopting this architecture to create applications for on-premises systems and the cloud. Microservices is a type of architecture that breaks software into a collection of services. These services can be deployed independently, structured as per business capabilities, and loosely coupled.

Dot Net Core deployment is also beneficial when you want to build applications based on microservices architecture. It is lightweight, scalable, and offers a mix of technologies for each microservice. You can implement microservices in dot net core. Many businesses choose the framework ASP.NET Core for implementing microservices for web application development.

Complex Web Apps

Businesses that want to create complex and multi-purpose web applications require versatile and powerful technology. .NET Core is a platform that offers diverse technologies and tools for creating complex web apps.

With the use of ASP.NET Core and ASP.NET Core MVC, you can create robust web applications based on your preferred architectural pattern. ASP Net Core has a modular architecture and is used to create web apps for various platforms and purposes.

On the other hand, ASP .NET Core MVC is a framework that builds web apps based on MVC (Model, View, and Controller) architecture. MVC is a flexible architecture that simplifies application logic and helps to build efficient web apps. For many reasons, ASP.NET Core is the best framework for enterprise apps.

Web APIs

Besides creating apps and software for different platforms, .NET is also useful in creating RESTful Web APIs. The ASP.NET Core framework allows you to create controller-based APIs. Besides this, you can also create minimal APIs with this framework.

There are the following benefits of using ASP NET Core for creating web APIs:

• ASP.NET Core comes with in-built support for authorization and authentication along with social logins and third-party authenticators.
• The in-built dependency injection (DI) feature in ASP.NET Core helps in the maintenance of code and simplifies it.
• APIs built with ASP NET Core can be deployed to multiple environments.
• It offers a lightweight structure to build fast-performing Web APIs.

Docker Containers

Often in software development containers and microservices architecture are used in conjunction for more efficiency and flexibility. Dot Net Core is well-suited for containers because of its modular and lightweight structure. .NET Core applications can be built with microservices structure under SOA (Service-oriented Architecture).

By decomposing applications into a microservices architecture, you can deploy individual services as containers when deploying the application on Docker. You can create containers by bundling individual services with respective dependencies.

.NET is one of the most in-demand software development technologies today because of its flexibility and active community support. Choosing dot net development for developing custom applications and software offers many benefits. Here are the advantages of using .NET Core for software development projects.

Single Codebase for Cross-platform Apps

The best part of using the .NET Core platform to develop mobile applications is managing only a single codebase for a cross-platform app. So, you can have native applications for Android and iOS devices while the code written is the same for both.

There is also a common programming language used to develop apps for different platforms. Mostly, C# is the language used for .NET development, but other languages like F# and Visual Basic can also be used.

Easy Development from Any Platform

Since dot net is cross-platform, it means software can be developed irrespective of the platform used. So, whether you use Windows, Linux, or macOS, you can easily develop robust software with the .NET Core platform.

Interoperability with Other Technologies

.NET offers interoperability that helps you integrate additional code which is beyond the dot net environment. It means you can integrate code that works with other technology or platform. In dot net, the code that runs under CLR (Common Language Runtime) is called a managed code and that doesn’t run under the CLR is an unmanaged code.

Unmanaged code includes ActiveX components, C++ components, Microsoft Windows API, COM, and COM+. In dot net, interoperability with unmanaged code is achieved with varying technologies. For example, you need COM interoperability (COM interop) to manage interoperability for code based on COM.

The “platform invoke” services and the System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace is used to access functions, callbacks, and structs from unmanaged code libraries in your managed code. Further, C++ interoperability lets you work with unmanaged code based on the C++ language.

Convenient Way to Access Databases

Connecting to databases and retrieving data is a common function of different websites and applications. Using database queries can be tedious to fetch data for your website or application due to the complexity of the code.

.NET Entity Framework Core streamlines the way database queries are handled. The Entity Framework Core serves as an ORM (Object-relational Mapper) providing a bridge between the programming language and databases. It enables you to work with databases through .NET objects. The Entity Framework Core supports multiple databases including PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, etc. It is better in terms of query performance, mappings, and migrations.

As you have seen, net core shines in the software development realm due to the many amazing benefits it endows. However, there are also a few downsides to developing software based on the .NET Core platform. The following are the major disadvantages of dot net core.

Old Libraries Not Fully Supported

Older libraries are not fully supported with .NET Core. So, if you need to use any of the older libraries that are available with .NET Framework, there are chances it’s difficult with Dot NET Core. You may have to use a different framework or library for your project.

Lack of Compatibility with Old Platforms

.NET Core may not offer full compatibility with older platforms that you can get with .NET Framework. In that case, using the latter can be a viable option for you.

Learning Curve Does Exist

Learning new technologies can be challenging or easy depending on the learning curve. Since Dot NET Core is a relatively new platform, there may be a learning curve that developers have to deal with.

Since Dot NET Core is cross-platform, flexible, and rich in multifarious features, many companies have used it to develop diverse applications. There are many brands that have chosen dot net enterprise application development to create websites and apps. Here are some of the top companies using this platform.

Bing

Bing is among the top search engines and it is developed and owned by Microsoft. The underlying architecture of Bing is based on the .NET and .NET Core platforms. Bing is counted among the most complex, performant, and large applications based on .NET.

Since Bing is a web-based application, it uses the ASP.NET app model of the .NET platform and offers multi-search options like image search, maps, products, etc. It is the successor of MSN and Live Search, which is now more advanced with Bing AI.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overview is a reputed question-and-answer platform for programmers where they can seek help and give help. It was created to help programmers globally solve their problems with the help of other programmers. There is support from a huge community of programmers on this platform including both beginners and virtuosos.

Surprisingly, Stack Overview is also powered by .NET Core. It was created with ASP.NET MVC and MySQL. Stack Overflow is only a question-answer platform where programming questions are asked on specific topics.

W3schools.com

W3schools is an online learning platform that provides learning materials for various coding skills. It is one of the most in-demand learning platforms for coding with an easy-to-use interface and helpful articles.

W3schools is also using the .NET platform. It was created with the ASP.NET framework in conjunction with other libraries and tools.

Geocaching

It is the world’s top hide-and-seek game which offers an exceptional outdoor playing experience. In this game, participants use mobiles, GPS, or other navigational methods to hide and seek “geocaches” which are containers of objects.

The hybrid tech stack of Geocaching is powered by .NET APIs. The backend of their game infrastructure is built with .NET enabling them to easily scale up, adding millions of users.

Today .NET is one of the most popular frameworks for developing diverse solutions. It has risen in popularity since its launch. Many implementations of the .NET platform have been launched including .NET Framework, .NET Core, ASP.NET, ASP.NET Core, and ASP.NET MVC.

You should also understand the difference between the Even and the Odd versions of the .NET platform. The even-numbered versions of .NET come under the LTS (Long Term Support), and the odd-numbered versions come under the STS (Standard Term Support).

There is no quality difference between the releases, the only difference is the duration of support. For LTS versions, the duration of free support and patches is 3 years and for STS, it is 18 months. The below image shows the STS and LTS differences and the future releases.

.NET and .NET Core are collections of multiple technologies including the dotnet SDK, runtime, Entity Framework Core, and ASP.NET Core. Every new release of the platform comes with several new features and improvements.

The following is a comparison of .NET in 2021 with .NET 2022 to determine how it’s working.

Comparison based on the top software development frameworks:

The above images reveal the results of surveys by Stack Overflow. In 2021, .NET and .NET Core were shown separately, and .NET is the leading framework. In 2022 also .NET is the leading framework with slightly more votes than the previous year. Interestingly, .NET and .NET Core are depicted as a single technology in 2022.

Comparison based on popular web frameworks:

Showing the most popular web frameworks in 2021 and 2022 as per the Stack Overflow surveys, the above images reveal the popularity of ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core web frameworks. ASP.NET Core has slipped to 7^th place in 2022 compared to 6^th place in 2021. However, ASP.NET remains in the 8^th position in both years. But they are more popular than frameworks like Django, AngularJS, and Laravel.

Comparison based on the most loved vs dreaded frameworks:

Based on the most loved vs dreaded frameworks in 2021 and 2022 surveys by Stack Overflow reveal that ASP.NET Core has slipped to 4^th position in 2022 compared to the 2^nd position in 2021 but is much above frameworks like Django, Node.JS, Laravel, etc.

So, what do these stats show? They point to the future of .NET development and if you have a question like should you choose .NET for your project now and beyond, the answer is simply Yes. With a bright future, dot net is the best-suited platform for a myriad of software development projects. There are regular releases and updates for this platform that ensure its reliability and security.

While dot net core is a robust platform for developing cutting-edge software, it is getting intense competition from many other frameworks and languages. There are several other backend technologies that have become popular including Java, Python, PHP, and NodeJS.

.NET Core vs Java

.NET Core is a platform for developing software while Java is a programming language. There are lots of differences between .NET Core and Java.

.NET Core vs Python

Python is an object-oriented interpreted programming language that is widely used for developing desktop applications, web apps, and machine learning solutions. It is very popular in machine learning and AI due to its extensive data analysis capabilities. The following table shows the dot net core vs Python comparison.

.NET Core vs PHP

PHP is a popular server-side scripting language that is widely used in developing fast and engaging websites and web apps. PHP is different from .NET Core in many ways. Let’s PHP vs .NET Core comparison.

.NET Core vs Node.JS

.NET is a developer platform whereas NodeJS is a runtime environment built to allow JavaScript code to run out of web browsers. The following comparison of .NET Core and Node.js shows the differences between them.

When you look to hire dot net developers for your project, you need to consider many factors including their skillset, experience, and ability to handle complex requirements. As a comprehensive and complicated development platform, working with dot net core is no easy feat. However, professional .NET developers are proficient in developing custom applications and solutions with the use of various frameworks based on the .NET technology.

As net core uses several programming languages and libraries, an ideal developer should be familiar with and proficient in those languages and libraries. For example, the developer should be well-versed in MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture to work with ASP NET Core MVC framework. There are also different engagement models to choose from for the ASP NET Core developer hiring process.

There are many capabilities that a developer should hold to fulfill all your requirements. If you want to quickly hire knowledgeable and experienced dot net developers, Radixweb is your go-to partner. Our developers are specialized in net core to help you develop fast and scalable applications. Contact us to discuss your requirements and hire the right .NET development team for your project.