Asp.Net Core Development

ASP.NET Core is an open-source and cross-platform framework for building modern cloud based internet connected applications, such as web apps, IoT apps and mobile backends. ASP.NET Core apps can run on .NET Core or on the full .NET Framework. It was architected to provide an optimized development framework for apps that are deployed to the cloud or run on-premises. It consists of modular components with minimal overhead, so you retain flexibility while constructing your solutions. You can develop and run your ASP.NET Core apps cross-platform on Windows, Mac and Linux. 

Features to build better applications with ASP.NET Core

1. Cross-platform & container support

With the introduction of .NET Core, you can now create ASP.NET applications and deploy them to Windows, Linux, and macOS. Microsoft and the community have put a huge effort into making Linux a first-class citizen for running ASP.NET.

Containers are eating the clouds these days. Docker, Kuberenetes and other technologies are all the rage. ASP.NET Core allows developers to utilize all of these new technologies. Microsoft Azure even has support for deploying your application to containers and Kubernetes.

2. High performance

Some say that performance is a critical feature of your software. I tend to agree! With the introduction of ASP.NET Core and the Kestrel web server, ASP.NET is touted as one of the fastest web application frameworks available. TechEmpower has some cool benchmarks you can check out.

The technology that powered the ASP.NET integrated pipeline and IIS was roughly 15 years old. It did everything and carried a lot of baggage with it. The new Kestrel web server was redesigned from the ground up to take advantage of asynchronous programming models, be much more lightweight, and fast!

3. Unified MVC & Web API frameworks

Before ASP.NET Core, developers were most commonly using the MVC and Web API frameworks. MVC was tailored to creating web applications that served up HTML. Web API was designed to create RESTful services using JSON or XML.

With ASP.NET Core, MVC and Web API have been merged together. There was always a lot of overlap with the two frameworks. MVC could always return JSON data instead of HTML. Combining them was a good move and simplifies development.

4. Multiple environments and development mode

One of my favorite features is the new environment feature. It allows you to easily differentiate parts of your code for their behavior in development, staging, production, etc. There was no standard way to do this before ASP.NET Core.

For example, it is used within your Startup.cs file to help configure your application. In this case, whether or not we want to show a more detailed exception page for development only.

5. Dependency Injection

One of the great new features of ASP.NET Core is built in dependency injection. It is heavily used within ASP.NET MVC itself. It is the preferred way that things like logging contexts, database contexts, and other things are passed into your MVC controllers.

public class PaymentService: IPaymentService
{
  public ILogger Logger { get; }

  //automatically passes the logger factory in to the constructor via dependency injection
  public PaymentService(ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
  {
    Logger = loggerFactory?.CreateLogger();
    if(Logger == null)
    {
      throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(loggerFactory));
    }
    Logger.LogInformation("PaymentService created");
  }
}

Why to use ASP.NET Core

Millions of developers have used (and continue to use) ASP.NET 4.x to create web apps. ASP.NET Core is a redesign of ASP.NET 4.x, with architectural changes that result in a leaner, more modular framework.

ASP.NET Core provides the following benefits:

• A unified story for building web UI and web APIs.

• Architected for testability.

• Razor Pages makes coding page-focused scenarios easier and more productive.

• Ability to develop and run on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

• Open-source and community-focused.

• Integration of modern, client-side frameworks and development workflows.

• A cloud-ready, environment-based configuration system.

• Built-in dependency injection.

• A lightweight, high-performance, and modular HTTP request pipeline.

• Ability to host on IIS, Nginx, Apache, Docker, or self-host in your own process.

• Side-by-side app versioning when targeting .NET Core.

• Tooling that simplifies modern web development.

Client-side development

ASP.NET Core integrates seamlessly with popular client-side frameworks and libraries, including Blazor, Angular, React, and Bootstrap. For more information, see Introduction to Blazor in ASP.NET Core and related topics under Client-side development.