Back in the 90s, the central concept in the world of software was Java. It helped share a lot with C and C++, but without being low-level, it also helped build web applications and programs.
Microsoft was concerned about the growth of Java, which pushed them to develop an alternative. So, taking advantage of the fact that the Java license allowed them to create implementations of the language and its virtual machine, they created the J# language and Visual J++ IDE for Java developers to write applications for Windows. However, applications written in J#, despite being essentially Java applications, could only run on Windows, violating Java’s core motto: write once, run everywhere. For this, the company sued Microsoft for a billion dollars.
Creating .Net
To avoid problems, Microsoft discontinued both products and created two new ones, written from scratch but retaining much of the philosophy, syntax, and operation of Java: C# and . NET.
.NET is now Microsoft’s platform on which to develop everything (web, mobile, video games, artificial intelligence, desktop, cloud, etc.). But you may have heard terms like .NET Framework, .NET Core, .NET 5, .NET Standard, ASP.NET, ASP.NET Core, VisualBasic.NET, etc. Who’s who in this maze of names?
To make it easier for you to work with this platform from Microsoft, you can turn to specialists and order net development. It can be any type of product.
Modern .Net
By 2020, Microsoft wanted to solve the naming and versioning issue because .NET Framework was at version 4.8 and .NET Core was at 3, so there was more clutter. So he made the wise decision to bundle everything into a single platform (not a framework) called plain .NET. And so that there were no problems with names, they started in version 5.
The new .NET platform was launched in November 2020 with plans to release a new version every year, and 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of .NET, as shown on the Microsoft website.
Currently, .NET is the base platform for developing all kinds of applications in C# (F# and VisualBasic.NET also exists, but their use is very small as if they did not exist). Modules are added to .NET to extend it and create frameworks and concrete solutions.
For example, on the web, we have ASP.NET for the full stack and Blazer for a single-page application using web assembly to have C# in the front end.
For desktop and mobile devices, we have .NET MAUI (Multi-Platform Application User Interface), which is an evolution of Xamarin and shares some commonalities with it. For video games, there is Unity and Unreal Engine, as well as solutions for IoT, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.
In terms of tools, we have Microsoft’s IDE, Visual Studio, which is paid, but it also has a free version called Visual Studio Community. Although you can also develop with Visual Studio Code or Rider (by JetBrains).
.NET has Nuget as a package manager and GitHub as a code repository (which is also owned by Microsoft). .NET is cross-platform and open source and is not tied to Microsoft, but the .NET Foundation was created to support this platform. So you can develop in .NET without fear and without paying licenses.
If you have been dreaming of implementing your product for a long time, then you can always contact Devox Software specialists for help. Thus, you will be 100% sure that the development will be of high quality and meet all your wishes and requests.