.NET Core-Fork in the Road

June 21st, 2016 | Posted by Vidya Vrat in .NET Core

What is .NET Core

.NET Core is a new Microsoft platform. Which is modular, cross-platform, open source and have better support for cloud. .NET Core will continue to run on Windows devices, as well as on Linux and Mac OS X. In addition, unlike the .NET 4.6 which is installed machine wide as single large block, Windows-only runtime environment, .NET Core can be used to create modular libraries and applications that can target multiple platforms and deployed (per-application) along with the application itself.

Why .NET “Core”

Microsoft’s vision of .NET platform evolved over the past 15 years and many technology enthusiasts, leaders and influencers wanted .NET to be open-source, available to other platforms like Linux and Mac in addition to currently and widely supported Microsoft Windows.

To accomplish this broad and such a large goal and vision it was necessary to have a “fork in the road” and create a fresh and new version of “.NET” which is named as “.NET Core 1.0”.

Hence, Developing application using “.NET Core 1.0” will enable and empower the developers to write applications with one platform for instance Microsoft Windows and when all ready that can run on multiple platforms in this case Mac, Linux and Windows of-course.

Why Version “1.0”

Current and latest .NET Framework version is 4.6.x and so next major release version was supposed be “5” and initially it was called .NET Core 5. Similarly next version of ASP .NET 4.5 was named ASP .NET 5 and next version of Entity Framework 6.1.x was named Entity Framework 7, fair enough.

 

But this numbering order conveyed the message that these are just next version of the same framework and technology; whereas the reality is different. “.NET Core” concept is totally new, YES! Its brand new concept hence numbering has to be re-started and so…

  • .NET Framework 5.0 is now known as “.NET Core 1.0”
  • ASP .NET 5.0 is now knows as “ASP .NET Core 1.0”
  • MVC 6 is now known as “ASP .NET Core MVC”
  • Entity Framework 7 is now known as “Entity Framework Core 1.0”

.NET Ecosystem

With new launch of .NET “Core” wave of framework and technology, old version .NET 4.6 (which are mature and fully grown) will continue to co-exist. .NET Core can be installed on the same machine. However, .NET Core will have its very own personalized core libraries etc.

.NET Core Includes CoreCLR, a more lightweight runtime that provides basic services to your application including automatic memory management and garbage collection, along with a basic type library. Unlike .NET 4.6 which has such a large footprint for the same.

.NET Core also includes CoreFx, a set of modular assemblies that you can add to your project/application as per demand. Unlike the .NET Framework 4.x, which always had to make the entire .NET Framework Class Library aka BCL (base class library) available, with .NET Core you can select only the assemblies that you need. I.e. Windows doesn’t need Web and vice-versa.

.NET Core implementations

Following technologies are currently available in .NET Core wave.

  • ASP.NET Core. ASP.NET Core is a modular version of ASP.NET that combines ASP.NET MVC and the ASP.NET Web API. It runs on both the .NET Framework 4.6 and .NET Core 1.0. It is custom designed for building high-performance cloud applications. ASP .NET Core should not be considered and taken as a replacement to ASP.NET 4.6 in the .NET Framework 4.6.
  • .NET Native. .NET Native is a compilation and deployment technology for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps written in C# and Visual Basic .NET. “.NET Native” compiles apps to native code, and statically links into an application’s assemblies only those code elements from .NET Core libraries and other third-party libraries that are actually used.
  • Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. The Universal Windows Platform allows you to build a single app that can run on the Windows desktop, Windows tablet devices, and Windows Phone. These apps can also be placed in the Windows Store. UWP apps are compiled to native code for their target platforms by .NET Native

Supported Environments

.NET Core is supported by Microsoft on Windows, mac OS and Linux. On Linux, Microsoft primarily supports .NET Core running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Debian distribution families.

.NET Core currently supports X64 CPUs. On Windows, X86 is also supported. ARM64 and ARM32 are in progress.

A wide array of all the supported platforms is shown in the Table below.

OS Version Architectures Configurations
Windows Client 7 SP1 – 10 x64, x86
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 – 2016 x64, x86 Full, Server Core, Nano (2016 only)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 x64
Fedora 23 x64
Debian 8.2 x64
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS x64
Linux Mint 17 x64
openSUSE 13.2 x64
Centos 7.1 x64
Oracle Linux 7.1 x64
Mac OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) x64

 

Which one to choose .NET 4.6 or .NET Core

.NET Core is not yet mature, until it’s fully mature and time-tested; in my view it’s not advisable to start building Enterprise LOB (line of business) applications using .NET Core. Hence, .NET 4.6 and ASP .NET 4.6 are more mature and time-tested until .NET Core becomes mature.

The Future of .NET

“.NET Core” is certainly the future of .NET Platform. But we are not there yet, it will be a while until this is widely accepted and industry really start to mold and accept its advantages and become more open to build light-weight, cross-platform applications using .NET. However, Microsoft envisions to continue with ASP .NET 4.6 as well. Reminder, ASP .NET Core 1.0 is NOT AN END for .NET 4.6 /ASP .NET 4.6 instead it’s a NEW BEGINNING.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.