.NET
Microsoft's cross-platform runtime and framework ecosystem.
CurrentintermediateFull course available
Overview
.NET is the runtime and standard library underneath C# (and other .NET languages), now fully cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS) since the .NET Core rewrite. ASP.NET (web), and various desktop/mobile frameworks all run on top of it.
- What it is
- A cross-platform runtime and standard library for running C# (and F#, VB.NET) applications.
- Why it's used
- For its performance, mature tooling (Visual Studio), and unification of what used to be separate .NET Framework/.NET Core/Xamarin platforms into one.
- Where it fits
- The platform underneath C#, ASP.NET, and various desktop/mobile .NET frameworks.
Core concepts
- The .NET SDK and CLI (dotnet new, dotnet run)
- NuGet packages
- Cross-platform builds
- The Common Language Runtime (CLR)
Example
The dotnet CLI scaffolds, builds, and runs .NET projects across platforms -- the same commands work identically on Windows, Linux, or macOS.
// terminal
dotnet new console -o hello
cd hello
dotnet runCommon use cases
- Cross-platform backend services
- Desktop applications
- Cloud-native applications on Azure
Project ideas
- Scaffold and run a minimal console app, then a minimal web API, to see how the CLI structures each