Every Engineering Manager's guide to .NET development. See what’s hiding under the hood of .NET 6, why consider MAUI for your next app, and how to find a .NET vendor.
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NET is an open source developer platform that offers tools for building many types of applications. It provides the highest security and stability levels, so it's eagerly used by enterprises and financial companies. After the release of .NET 6 it also became great for startups and scale-ups.
Now .NET development allows developers for the same level of flexibility and dynamics as, for example, JavaScript.
That's why .NET developers are in high demand now.
If you're thinking about starting a .NET project, learn more about .NET platform, environment, and its tech and business benefits.
.NET is an open source development platform for building various types of applications for many operating systems and devices. It’s the whole environment which entails stability and security, and allows developers to be more productive.
.NET development platform offers many tools and libraries with long term support.
.NET platform was designed and is supported by Microsoft. It supports multiple programming languages, editors, and libraries which allow developers to build web, mobile, desktop, and IoT applications for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and more.
Since 2019, .NET platform is a whole unified environment for building projects across cloud, browser, IoT, mobile, and desktop environments> It enables all to derive from the same rich set of .NET libraries, with also an SDK and runtime.
Is .NET a programming language?.NET is not a programming language - it’s a development platform that offers a set tools, libraries, and frameworks. To write applications with .NET, you need to use C#, F#, or Visual Basic.
C# is considered the main programming language for .NET, but developers can also use other languages to create applications. The languages sponsored by Microsoft are:
.NET platform offers a set of tools (and various libraries and frameworks among them) to support the development of different types of .NET applications.
Among .NET stack there are:
.NET framework was initially the main component of .NET - the framework run only on Windows. It was being developed till the version 4.8. Then, Microsoft introduced .NET core - they rewrote .NET framework and made it cross-platform. The architecture was redesigned to have less features.
.NET core reached the version 3.1 and then was renamed into .NET. To avoid confusion with numbers, creators skipped version 4, and immediately released .NET 5.
.NET 5 is a continuation of .NET core 3.1, but with this release many changes came on. Plus, since then, .NET started to exist as a name and a whole unified platform.
In 2019, Microsoft announces the new release to tie the whole ecosystem and bundle all the tools and elements of .NET environment into .NET development platform. The platform came with new APIs and runtime capabilities.
.NET 5 was the successor of .NET Core 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.8. .NET 5 includes ASP.NET Core, Xamarin, Entity Framework Core, WPF, WinForms, and ML.NET.
.NET 6 was released in 2021 and it brought many changes.
One of the most prominent .NET 6 features is .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI). It's a cross-platform framework for building native desktop and mobile apps with C# and XAML.
The release of .NET 6 is a final step in the unification of the .NET platform.
A few other differences .NET offers:
.NET 6 is also more accurate for agile teams - they can work swiftly taking advantage of the enterprise-friendly environment.
The platform allows developers to manage all processes and use unified, supported, and official set of tools.
The .NET environment is here for a long time, having Microsoft's support, so it's stable and trustworthy.
.NET 6 increased developers' productivity. The whole environment of common tools and libraries also allows developers for more effective work.
The whole .NET platform is secure and there's no need to use third-party libraries and tools in .NET application development process.
.NET 6 supports frequent deployments and allows for more agile way of working, which has a positive impact on early bug identification and allows teams to respond to feedback quickly.
.NET provides the environment for most software development phases, so it's widely used among various software development projects - it supports web-based services, desktop software, and offers cloud infrastructure support.
.NET is a great solution for applications that need to be extra secure and stable, which means banking, fintech, and business solutions.
.NET is also a great solution for:
.NET apps are scalable, since the environment allows for redesigning ongoing applications. .NET software scales in accordance with the business needs. .NET is great for scale-ups.
.NET environment covers tools for different platforms and makes it easy to build cross-platform apps. It helps to reduce the development effort and easily expand a product to other operating system.
.NET provides a wide toolset that helps to build and cross-integrate enterprise products. It also supports an enterprise mobility ecosystem. .NET software is easy to scale, so it fits the growing needs of enterprises.
.NET technologies are eagerly used by fintech and banking sectors since the .NET ecosystem is stable and secure. There's no need to use third-party libraries and add extra layers to your application.
The .NET integrated development environment provides developers with all the tools they need, with open-source but managed licenses, that allow them to build software solutions that are easy to deploy, maintain, and scale.
It all makes .NET software perfect from the security point of view.
You may be a little surprised, because .NET associates mainly with enterprise-related solutions. However, Microsoft did a great job with .NET 6, making the .NET code lightweight. .NET became as flexible and lightweight as JavaScript. On the same time still offering stability, security, and the widest toolset.
Therefore, .NET is a great solution for startups, since the code can be written quickly and in an agile way. And then, thanks to the whole environment, a startup can easily become a scale-up.
When looking for the providers of top .NET development services, you can't only focus on finding professional developers specializing in .NET environment.
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