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Overview of Microsoft Web Technologies
ASP.NET is a web technology for building web applications. ASP.NET offers several frameworks for building web applications. They are Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET Core (.NET), Blazor, etc. Each of the ASP.NET web technologies offered by Microsoft has its own purpose. None of the web frameworks is trying to replace the other.
Web Forms: Web Forms are like Windows Forms, where we can drag and drop to create controls, and it has an event-driven model. It was introduced in the original .NET Framework 1.0 version, released in 2002.
ASP.NET MVC: ASP.NET MVC uses a Model-View-Controller design pattern. This pattern helps to achieve separation of concerns. Here the entire application is divided into three main components. They are Models, Views, and Controllers. The model contains the business logic, the View contains the UI logic, and the Controller contains the input logic. It is easy to write tests in MVC and enables Test Driven Development (TDD). It was introduced in the .NET Framework 3.5 version, which was released in 2009
ASP.NET Web Pages: ASP.NET Web Pages and Razor syntax easily combine HTML, CSS, and server code in the same file. ASP.NET Web Pages integrate well with other ASP.NET technologies and frameworks. It can leverage components and libraries from ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, and other ASP.NET projects.
ASP.NET Core: ASP.NET Core is an updated version of ASP.NET. It is a Cross Platform, High Performance, Open-Source framework for building modern cloud-enabled web applications. It offers improved performance, scalability, and modularity compared to its predecessor, ASP.NET. The initial version of .NET Core was released in 2016
ASP.NET Core MVC: ASP.NET Core MVC is the updated version of ASP.NET MVC. It utilizes the features of the .NET Core framework. The features of .NET Core will be thoroughly discussed in the upcoming section.
Blazor: Blazor is a relatively newer web framework developed by Microsoft that allows developers to build interactive client-side web applications using .NET languages such as C#. It enables developers to write front-end code using C# instead of JavaScript. It provides a unified programming model for a web application’s client and server sides. Blazor was first released as part of the .NET Core 3.0 version.
Overview of ASP.NET 4.x
ASP.NET framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft. It provides the runtime environment for building and running applications.
.NET Framework 1.0: Released in February 2002, the .NET Framework 1.0 was the initial version of the framework. It provided a runtime environment, common language runtime (CLR), and a set of libraries to develop and run .NET applications. It supported languages such as C#, Visual Basic .NET, and managed C++. The initial version of ASP.NET Web Forms was included in this release.
.NET Framework 1.1: Released in April 2003, the .NET Framework 1.1 included updates and bug fixes to the previous version, along with some additional features and improvements.
.NET Framework 2.0: Released in November 2005, the .NET Framework 2.0 introduced several significant enhancements, including a new CLR version, improved performance, new libraries, and features such as generics, partial classes, and the ability to develop applications for the newly introduced Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Master pages were introduced for creating consistent layouts across web pages.
.NET Framework 3.0: Released in November 2006, the .NET Framework 3.0 was an extension of the 2.0 version. It introduced new technologies such as Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and Windows CardSpace (WCS).
.NET Framework 3.5: Released in November 2007, the .NET Framework 3.5 was built upon the 3.0 version. It included new features like LINQ (Language-Integrated Query), support for ASP.NET AJAX, and additional libraries and improvements.
.NET Framework 4.0: Released in April 2010, the .NET Framework 4.0 introduced a new CLR version and included enhancements such as support for parallel programming with the Task Parallel Library (TPL), dynamic language runtime (DLR), improved garbage collection, and support for new technologies like Windows Workflow Foundation 4. ASP.NET MVC framework was introduced.
.NET Framework 4.5: Released in August 2012, the .NET Framework 4.5 was an in-place update to the 4.0 version. It introduced new features and improvements, including asynchronous programming support with the async/await keywords, support for new C# language features, improved performance, and additional libraries. ASP.NET Web API framework was introduced.
.NET Framework 4.6 and subsequent versions: Microsoft continued to release updates and new versions of the .NET Framework, including 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, and more. These versions introduced various improvements, bug fixes, and new features. New features, model binding, and enhanced routing were added to ASP.NET web forms.
In the next article, I am going to give you a brief Introduction to DOT NET Core (Currently Called .NET without the Core Tag) Framework. Here, in this article, I try to give an overview of Microsoft Web Technologies, and I hope you enjoy this article.
