What is ASP.NET Core?
ASP.NET Core is a cross-platform, open-source framework for building modern cloud-based applications.
It’s a redesign of the previous version of ASP.NET 4.x for that reason it was initially called ASP.NET 5 but later renamed to ASP.NET Core.
Benefits and Features
Below are the benefits and features offered by one of the most popular software development frameworks:
- Cross-Platform: ASP.NET Core applications can be developed and run across multiple platforms – macOS, Windows, and Linux.
- Hosting: They can be hosted on IIS, Apache, Docker, and also self-hosted.
- IDE: You can use visual studio code, visual studio, sublime code editor
- Programming Model: It offers a unified programming model for MVC and Web API. Both MVC Controller and Web API Controller class inherit from the same Controller base class and returns IActionResult.
- Dependency Injection: It comes with built-in support for DI.
- Testability: As this framework comes with built-in dependency injection and a unified programming model, UNIT testing for the .net core applications is easy.
- Community Support: As the framework is open source and it has great community support. It is continually evolving as the vast community behind it is suggesting ways to improve it and helping in fixing bugs and problems.
Tools Needed for Development
- IDE: Visual Studio, VS Code, Sublime Text (Any one of these)
- .NET Core SDK (Software Development Kit)
In the next section, let’s create our first application.