ASP.NET Core Overview

ASP.NET Core is a cross-platform, high-performance, open-source framework for building modern, cloud-enabled, internet-connected applications. With ASP.NET Core, you can:

• Build web apps and services, including:
  • Websites
  • APIs
  • Mobile backends
  • Real-time services (e.g., SignalR)
• Develop on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Deploy to:
  • Cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud)
  • On-premises servers
  • Docker containers
• Use your favorite development tools (Visual Studio, VS Code, Sublime Text).
• Write modern C# code.

Key Features and Benefits

ASP.NET Core offers a modular design and a set of well-integrated, small-footprint, cross-platform, high-performance, and open-source development tools. It's designed to be fast, scalable, and developer-friendly.

Performance

ASP.NET Core is designed for performance. It is significantly faster than previous versions of ASP.NET, thanks to architectural improvements such as:

• A lightweight and modular HTTP request pipeline.
• Built-in support for ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation.
• Efficient memory management and garbage collection.

Cross-Platform Development

You can develop and run ASP.NET Core applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This flexibility allows you to choose the operating system that best suits your development workflow and deployment targets.

Open Source and Community Driven

ASP.NET Core is open-source and developed on GitHub. This transparency fosters collaboration and allows the community to contribute directly to the framework's evolution. You can find the source code on GitHub.

Unified Web Framework

ASP.NET Core combines the ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, and ASP.NET Web API frameworks into a single programming model. This unified approach simplifies development and allows you to choose the best pattern for your application needs.

Modern Tooling

ASP.NET Core integrates seamlessly with modern development tools like Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and the .NET CLI. These tools provide features such as code completion, debugging, project management, and package management.

"ASP.NET Core empowers developers to build high-performance, scalable web applications and services for any platform."

Core Components

Understanding the core components of ASP.NET Core will help you grasp its architecture and how it handles requests:

• Kestrel: The default, cross-platform web server included with ASP.NET Core. It's fast and efficient for serving content.
• Middleware: A pipeline of components that handle HTTP requests and responses. Each piece of middleware can perform an action, pass the request to the next component, or terminate the request.
• Hosting: The ASP.NET Core hosting model provides a way to configure and launch your web application.
• Configuration: ASP.NET Core has a flexible configuration system that can load settings from various sources (e.g., JSON files, environment variables, command-line arguments).
• Dependency Injection (DI): Built-in support for dependency injection makes it easier to manage dependencies and build loosely coupled applications.

Getting Started

To start building your first ASP.NET Core application, you'll need to install the .NET SDK. You can then use the .NET CLI to create a new project:

dotnet new webapp -o MyWebApp
cd MyWebApp
dotnet run

For more detailed instructions, please refer to the Getting Started guide.