Dot Net Core

.NET Core is a free, open-source, modular, cross-platform framework developed by Microsoft for building modern, high-performance applications. It is a reimplementation of the .NET Framework to be more lightweight, modular, and flexible.

.NET Core includes a runtime, a set of libraries, and a development environment that supports multiple programming languages such as C#, Visual Basic, and F#. It is designed to run on various platforms, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. It can be used to build a wide range of applications, including web applications, desktop applications, and microservices.

One of the key benefits of .NET Core is that it is modular, which means you can use only the components you need for your application, making it more lightweight and faster. Additionally, .NET Core includes many performance improvements over the .NET Framework, including faster startup times and lower memory usage.

History of .NET Core

.NET Core, developed by Microsoft, is managed under the .NET Foundation, a non-profit open source organization. .NET Core is written in C# and C++ and licensed under MIT license. The first version, .NET Core 1.0, was released in 2016 with limited functionality. .NET Core 2.0 was released on August 14, 2017. Two key frameworks released in this release were ASP.NET Core 2.0 and Entity Framework Core 2.0. The next stable versions, .NET Core 2.1 and 2.2, were released in May and Dec 2018. The current version of .NET Core is 3.0.0, in Preview 3, and was announced on March 6, 2019.

The following table summarizes the major milestones of .NET Core:

VersionRelease dateKey features/products.NET Core 1.06/27/2016The initial release of .NET Core is supported by Visual Studio 2015 Update 3..NET Core 1.1.13/7/2017.NET Core Tools 1.0 supported by Visual Studio 2017.NET Core 2.08/14/2017Visual Studio 2017 15.3, ASP.NET Core 2.0, Entity Framework 2.0.NET Core 2.15/30/2018ASP.NET Core 2.1, EF Core 2.1.NET Core 2.212/4/2018ASP.NET Core 2.2, EF Core 2.2.NET Core 3.0 Preview 33/6/2019Support of ASP.NET Core 3.0, Entity Framework Core 3.0, UWP, Windows Forms, and WPF via Visual Studio 2019.

Characteristics of .NET Core

Key characteristics of .NET Core include open source, cross-platform, modern, flexible, lightweight, fast, friendly, shareable, and built for future software development.

.NET Core is Free and Open Source.

The .NET Core platform is free and open source. .NET Core source code project is available on GitHub. Any developer can get involved in .NET Core development. Thousands of active developers participating in .NET Core development are improving features, adding new features, and fixing bugs and issues.

An independent non-profit organization manages .NET Core called the .NET Foundation. More than 60,000 developers and 3,700 companies are contributing to the .NET ecosystem.

.NET Core is free and licensed under MIT and Apache licenses.

.NET Core is Cross-platform.

.NET Core supports and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. .NET Core is consistent across architecture, including x64, x86, and ARM. The same assemblies and libraries can be imported and used on multiple platforms. The assemblies and libraries are built using one of the .NET languages, C#, VB.NET, or F#.

.NET Core is Sharable.

.NET Core uses one consistent API model written in .NET Standard that is common to all .NET applications. The same API or library can be used with multiple platforms in multiple languages.

.NET Core is Modern.

Unlike some older frameworks, .NET Core is designed to solve today's modern needs, including being mobile friendly, build once run everywhere, scalable, and high performance. .NET Core is designed to build applications that target all kinds of devices, including IoTs and gaming consoles.

.NET supports modern language constructs with the help of C# version 8, like object-oriented and modular programming, generics, collections, lambdas, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), and asynchronous programming, which makes developers productive. Learn more about C# 8 features here?C# 8 Features.

Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio Code are the world's two most advanced and modern developer IDEs. Both IDEs support modern needs and focus on cleanness, speed, and productivity.

.NET Core is Fast.

.NET Core 3.0 is fast. Compared to the .NET Framework and .NET Core 2.2 and previous versions, .NET Core 3.0 is blazing fast. .NET Core is much quicker than other server-side frameworks such as Java Servlet and Node.js.