Why .Net Core and C# Are the Next Big Thing?

According to the TIOBE programming index, C# is already one of the top 5 programming languages. .NET has been around a long time now and has steadily changed and improved over 15 years. Over the years we have been experiencing awesome improvements like MVC, generics, LINQ, async/await and more.

As someone who has dedicated myself to the language, it is awesome to see it improve over time. With .NET Core, a lot has changed, including all of the ASP.NET stack being completely overhauled. The C# programming language has been around for about 15 years and continues to improve over time.

VERSATALITY

One of the best things about C# and .NET is the versatility of it. We can write desktop apps, web applications, background services, and even mobile apps thanks to Xamarin. Besides C#, all We really have to know is a little JavaScript (aided by TypeScript) to hack some UI code together. ASP.NET Core templates even make use of Bootstrap layouts and npm for pulling in client-side libraries.

AWESOME DEVELOPER TOOLS

Visual Studio has always been regarded as one of the best IDEs available for developers. It is a great code editor that supports features like code completion, debugging, profiling, git integration, unit testing, and much more. Visual Studio now offers a full featured free community edition.

It is also possible to write code for .NET Core as basic text files with your favorite text editor. Visual Studio Code on any OS as a great basic code editor for .NET and C#. There are a lot of plugins that makes developer friendlier with visual studio. We can’t miss Resharper and Jetbrains too.

STANDARDIZATION OF SKILLS

.NET comes with a very good set of base class libraries. Unlike node.js, simple string functions like LeftPad() are built in. The wide array of base classes greatly lessens the need for external packages. Microsoft does lean on some community projects as well, like JSON.NET, to be key libraries widely used in most projects.

Microsoft provides a very good set of patterns and practices for .NET. For example, there are standard data access (entity framework) and model-view-controller (MVC) frameworks built-in. Most developers use those standard frameworks. This makes it easy as a developer to move between teams and quickly understand how things work. Your knowledge and skills become more portable due to this.

.NET CORE IS OPEN SOURCE

One of the biggest changes to ever happen to .NET was the open sourcing of the code. Virtually all of the code is now on GitHub for anyone to review, fork, and contribute to. This is a huge change that most people in the industry never thought would happen.

As a developer, from time to time you need to look under the covers to see what your code is really doing. Even if you don’t contribute to the source code, you benefit from the huge community that is. Problems and improvements are quickly discussed, coded, and released for you to use on a regular basis. Gone are the days of waiting years in between releases for major improvements or minor bug fixes.

CONCLUSION ON WHY .NET CORE AND C#

It is amazing to see what Microsoft, and the community, have done with .NET Core and how it has become the cool new thing. Now we can port a .NET app over to run on a Mac, which is pretty amazing to see in action after all these years!

The problem with many of the existing programming languages is they are good at one use case. Ruby and php are awesome for web applications. Swift or Objective C are great for creating iOS or MacOS applications. If you wanted to write a background service you could use python, java, or other languages. Besides C#, JavaScript and Java may be the only languages that can be applied to a wide set of use cases.

The awesome thing about C# is the wide versatility of it that can be used for a wide variety of types of applications. Now with .NET Core working on MacOS and Linux, there truly is no limit to what you can do.