.NET Versions Explained - .NET, .NET Core, .NET Standard, .NET Framework and more 

Thank you!

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Glad it was helpful!

Awesome! I’m glad it was helpful.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Even though it was a struggle, it is a testament to how "easy" the upgrade path is that you could do it in four weeks (plus the hard work of your team). I'm glad you were able to push through the dependency issues.

Does it work or will everyone get fired😃?

@@techsamurai11 LOL - thankfully it all works, including all the unit tests :)

But .Net Framework only works on top of IIS and IIS is tied to Windows. .Net framework apps are designed to be monolith. If you just make it .Net 7(which is designed to make microservice), it's another monolith.

@@sea0920 We have 32 projects in our solution, 1 is a WPF app (so tied to Windows), 2 are Blazor portals (can run anywhere - subject to underlying libraries) , 3 are API projects (could run anywhere - subject to underlying libraries) and the rest are either code libraries or services that, while currently configured as windows services could easily be Linux (they were originally). None are specifically tied to IIS, but due to other things some may be reliant on Windows due to device specific dependencies, e.g. Scanner or Printer. The rest could run quite happily on Linux.

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Thank you!

So freaking true! Ma, Ma Core, Ma Standart, Ma Plus Plus, Ma Minimal, Ma-Shma-bla... I keep forgetting where it started when I reach the end of this idiotic Microsoft mental exercise.

Haha

In their defense, this isn’t versioning of a product. This is two different products with a bridge product in between.

@Priyanker - I think this was a good standardization that made it as easy as possible. Do you have a recommendation that would have made it simpler to understand?

@@IAmTimCorey May I try: Any naming convention will be better then using the same moniker (Net) in the product name.

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Agree. Read the doc make you lost and tim is the saviour

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Great to hear!

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I am glad it was so helpful.

Great!

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@@IAmTimCorey I have a question and I would be glad if you can give me some insight on it - data structures and algorithms. My university major is Business Information Technology where we take programming and software development courses. We do not take dsa as Computer science/engineering students do. But I've noticed dsa is highly featured in software engineering. I want to go into web development and mobile app development (with flutter), do I need to learn dsa and how how I apply it?

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How will you upgrade them

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Excellent!

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Glad you like them!

I'm glad it was so helpful. And yes, you can jump right to .NET 8. I would recommend that you make sure your app is in source control, then just trying out the upgrade (change the 5 to an 8 in the csproj file). Re-compile the app and see what breaks (if anything). It might be the easiest upgrade you ever do. There may be some breaking changes, but that will mostly be on the dependencies you took rather than on your C# code.

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Every time a new version of .NET and C# gets released, I cover the changes in it. For example, here is .NET 7 (which mixes in C# 11): www.youtube.com/@IAmTimCorey/search?query=.net%207

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That's a pretty specific one, but yes, that can be an option. I don't love it, because you are relying on old technology all around rather than just doing it the modern way, but I understand.

I've already covered a lot of the changes with C# 11 and .NET 7: www.youtube.com/@IAmTimCorey/search?query=.net%207

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Thanks!

That's a pretty messy way to approach web development, though. The reason why OnEnd isn't available in .NET Core is because it operates asynchronously. The web, by its nature, is stateless and asynchronous. Trying to force it to be both stateful and synchronous isn't a great option. The better option is to figure out how to work within the system. If you use SignalR, for instance, you can know when the session ends and you can transmit data in real-time.

@@IAmTimCorey I am talking about business applications, where for security reasons the session is used not only for security but for logic management. For example, in certain contexts is important to perform several tasks when a session ends for a timeout (temp files cleaning, logging, record unlocking, etc.). I've studied the problem for a long time but I've found no satisfying solution so for these kind of projects I'm sticking to .Net, as several other developers.

Thanks for the suggestion. Please add it to the list on the suggestion site so others can vote on it as well: suggestions.iamtimcorey.com/

Here is an article that shares benchmarks (with the ability for you to reproduce them yourself): devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-net-6/ Note that the top of the article links to previous articles on the previous versions of .NET. That is important because there are less comparisons now to the .NET Framework because of how much has changed. However, even in this article there are some dramatic differences. For example, just constructing a new Random instance in .NET 5 took 1,473.7ns where in .NET 6 it takes 112.9ns (over 12 times faster in just one version update of .NET). Look back at the .NET Core 2.0 benchmark link and you will see things like a simple Concat statement being 30 times faster than on the .NET Framework, serialization being 12 times faster, Enum.Parse being 33% faster with 25 times less allocations, and more. There is lots to dig into, and not everything is benchmarked, but as these articles have gone on, they have done a much better job of highlighting the performance improvements and how to replicate the benchmarks.

There is not a direct correlation, really, but in practice, they put out a new version of C# at the same time as the new version of .NET and sometimes the changes in the C# version only apply to the latest version of .NET (but not always). It is a tricky connection.

Good question. The Mastercourse gives you a good foundation in the C# topics you need to know. It isn't going to be the "everything you ever need to know" (I know you know this, just making sure to set expectations). So, it focuses primarily on C# itself and making sure you know the language really well. It has a whole section (actually a couple) on databases and how to work with them with C#. It also has a whole set of sections on working with user interfaces (Blazor included). In all of these, you get a really good foundation in how to work with the topic. Say the 80% that requires 20% of the effort. However, there is LOTS more depth to go into. That's where the specialization courses come into play. For example, the Blazor Server section is about 2 hours in the C# Mastercourse. The Blazor Server From Start to Finish course is over 16 hours.

Build them in the versions specified, if at all possible. I know the temptation is to build in the latest version, but when you interview for a job, you will find that most companies use older versions of .NET / .NET Framework. Having that experience is important. If the version of .NET Core isn't on your machine, you can still download the SDK from Microsoft: dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/visual-studio-sdks

Got it, thank you so much!@@IAmTimCorey

I disagree. I think the naming was as clear as they could make it. I’ve got a challenge for you: figure out a better naming scheme. Remember that .NET Core is a new product developed in parallel so you can’t just continue the current naming, but it still works with .NET languages so you can’t really change the name. Plus you have to name the bridge product (.NET Standard). You have to do all of that while not confusing people into thinking that .NET Core is totally different while also not confusing them that it is the same.

@@IAmTimCorey My issue is with the numbering. If a noob sees .NET Core 2 and .NET Framework 4.7, it is easy for them to think .NET Framework is cutting edge. It does not matter what the actual names are but it would be nice to see dates as version numbers. Call it .NET Core 2017.08.14 instead of .NET Core 2. This could easily be googled but I feel like they lose people by adding an extra step.

I get that idea, but the problem is that .NET Core 2 was not superior to the .NET Framework. In fact, feature parity didn’t really happen until 3.1. .NET 5 truly moved past the .NET Framework in both number and features.

But that's exactly what they did. The .NET Framework philosophy was to throw everything into the framework. With .NET Core, they cut it back to just the essentials. All the rest is brought in via NuGet packages so that you get just what you need rather than a large package that you only use a few options out of. So yes, it is stripped down. It also removed a bunch of the bloat that comes from continual patches and upgrades. As for dropping WCF and WebForms (WinForms is still fully supported in .NET Core), WCF was proprietary so they gave it up in favor of the industry-standard gRPC and WebForms was not up to web standards either.

@@IAmTimCorey Yes, you're correct, but we're talking about how most would interpret "core" vs "framework". For a while, developers thought "core" basic, free and open source, while "framework" meant proprietary and full featured. In a Microsoft video, Fowler lamented about developers getting confused about what "minimal API" means. You really have to religiously follow the .NET ecosystem to keep up with the lingo. I juggle several different ecosystems and Microsoft makes it especially hard. I am watching this video to figure out the whole Long Term Support (LTS) means. At a meeting, I suggested we upgrade to .NET 7 and another dev objected saying .NET 6 is LTS. Now I have to research what the hell this means. It could mean that .NET 7 is in a experimental version where it can be changed at anytime, but .NET 7 is supposed to be an official release, not beta. Moreover, why would they use the term "long term support" and discourage developers from upgrading? Microsoft is totally inept!

I think you are confusing “it is confusing to me” with “Microsoft is inept”. Minimal APIs mean just that. They are minimalistic. And LTS is an industry-standard term. It means exactly what it says. They have some customers who don’t want to upgrade often. They use LTS. They have others that always want the latest thing. They get the STS too. Both are supported (the last S stands for support). The difference is the length of support. This, again, is a common practice in the industry. You can pretend the STS versions don’t exist and get your updates every two years. Or you can get an update every year and keep up with the latest changes. You get to choose. Would you rather they didn’t offer this choice?

The bonus course has more details, but both will be valuable.

Not easily. There may be some things you can do to work around them, but it will be tricky.

@@IAmTimCorey Thanks for responding Tim. If it's tricky for you, then I've got an uphill battle! Really enjoy the content. Sent a friend the link to your discussion about ChatGPT tonight. Great insight.

I'm not sure what you are expecting Microsoft to do differently. How would you have done things?

@@IAmTimCorey It a joke, not a protest. However, naming conventions are important. Given that colloquial language shortens everything for convenience, going from ".NET+ (suffix)" to simply ".NET" was always going to be confusing for people who weren't there to watch successive versions roll out. And it runs counter to general naming conventions in movies, software, games, gadgets, etc. In these, titles get longer as the item version increases.

I guess I'm just jaded when it comes to the naming coming out of Microsoft. This is the easiest naming system they have seemingly ever come up with. Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11? Or Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox X, Xbox Series X? After those, going from .NET Framework to .NET Core and then finally .NET has seemed like a dream.

The original idea was to continue with a new engine, but they quickly realized they couldn't bring feature parity to .NET Core quickly, which would mean that they would revert and lose a lot of customers who didn't understand.

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I believe this will answer your question: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4JyCS4t-_sQ.html

@@IAmTimCorey thank you so much

Nope.

Yes, WinForms and WPF can only work on Windows (the clue is in the name - they are tied to the Windows dlls). There is still a major benefit to being on .NET Core, though. That benefit is the speed improvements. .NET Core is orders of magnitude faster than the .NET Framework. That's also why it isn't really fair to say that .NET Core is only about the web being cross-platform. It is about it being standards-compliant, faster, more modular, easier to maintain, easier for developers to work with and upgrade, unified (all versions of .NET are now the same as opposed to Mono, Xamarin, UWP, etc.), and lots more.

@@IAmTimCorey I haven't seen any benchmark comparisons but I have seen some claims. Has anyone really done an objective comparison and benchmarks to compare .NET Framework vs .NET Core especially for web development? I might actually just run a page out of curiosity.

Microsoft does them with every release, to be sure they are improving performance, not regressing. While it may not feel "objective" at first, they usually provide the tools to test them yourself. For example, here is an article on the performance of ASP.NET Core 6: devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvements-in-aspnet-core-6/

Yep.

You are conflating two things together here. This video explains over 20 years of history and how we got to where we are today so you have a better grasp on the naming conventions and reasoning behind them. If you just want to explain the versioning for what we have today (things being updated), we have .NET. Currently, we are on .NET 7, which is the Short-term Supported (STS) version (supported for 15 months). .NET 8 will come out in November and be the Long-term Supported (LTS) version (supported for 3 years). You get a new version of .NET each November and they alternate between STS and LTS. That's simple to explain. You just don't get the history about why we are here, where it came from, why .NET Framework is still around, etc.

Marketing wasn't the reason why they moved past 4.8. That was their desire to get back to just .NET and reduce the confusion.

I didn't try to make it "so long". I tried to cover all of the points of confusion around the topic. I could have said ".NET, which was .NET Core, is a rewrite of the .NET Framework and .NET Standard is the bridge between the two." and been done in less than 15 seconds. However, I think you would agree that this explanation is missing a bit of context. The things you want cut out of the video are things that someone else wanted in the video. And the things they wanted cut out are things you actually wanted.

Not really. They may be settling down, but the iPhone 8 was released in September, 2017. The iPhone X was released 2 months later. The iPhone 11 was released two years later. That's not exactly a predictable pattern.

@@IAmTimCorey they generally release in september, but there were indeed some exceptions. But they always delivered a complete phone and did not cut features like maui.

I'm an iPhone fan, but even I'll admit that's not the case. Releasing a phone two months after releasing a new phone was a big slap in the face. The X had features that the 8 did not, which meant that they released hardware that essentially wasn't complete. As for their software, they are consistently behind the competition in what they release. We hear about features that never make it to production. Finally, they release updates that are buggy. For example, here's an article dedicated to some of the issues of iOS 14 and how to fix them: www.techradar.com/news/ios-14-problems The key, though, is that Apple is a different company than Microsoft, so when Microsoft has to create software that supports iOS, it can be difficult to manage. That can be true whether the software is amazing and predictable or not.

I disagree. First, I was thorough in my explanation in order to address a wide audience. I could have said “.NET Core is a new product that replaces the .NET Framework” and called it good. Second, I hear lots of people complain about the naming, but I have yet to hear one viable alternative that is clearer.

​@@IAmTimCorey wide audience? Do you think a Node.js or Java Developer or any other developer or a common Idiot has time to wait and watch 1 and half hour long video to understand JUST .NET VERSIONING? Look, I'm a full-stack developer (Angular and .NET.) I started learning .NET from.NET5, but when I started my .NET journey in Industry the scenario is quite different and disgusting. Most of the projects are still in older .NET versions and people are not even willing to update them. And If Microsoft wants .NET to be open for every platform they first need to ensure proper IDE and tools support to Linux users otherwise they can keep it to their SH*T OS. I can understand .NET is pretty good now but the backslash it get's because of its earlier disgusting windows-specific development is good enough to keep it unpopular.

I think that is a pretty poor take. Yes, the .NET Framework was designed to work on Windows. Windows also owned 80+% of the market share at that time and Windows was how they made their money. It isn't "disgusting" to make a decision based on making money. You do that when you take a job. As for .NET not having a "proper" IDE on Linux, use Rider. It works great on Linux. Microsoft isn't obligated to provide you with exactly what you want. In fact, I think they've gone further than they "should" with free content (I really appreciate it, but I often question the business sense of it). Linux has a TINY market share. Even then, there isn't one Linux desktop, there are multiple. Also, Linux isn't really an operating system. It is a platform that operating systems are built on. That further fragments the market.

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