.NET 5: Its Release Date, Features & Major Improvements

The release of .NET is aimed at unifying the .NET platform for all good reasons. The launch of this version will take place at .NET Conf 2020. It is said that this release promises major improvements to RyuJIT code, JSON serialization, and garbage collection, especially for starters. It brings a merger of .NET core and .NET Framework, which is one step closer to completion.

Why .NET 5 is the major release?

.NET 5 would be the huge release after the .NET framework latest version 4.8. The main reason as to why it would be a major release is it would be packed with the best features from .NET Core, .NET Framework, Mono, and Xamarin.

This helps to provide libraries, APIs, and run-time for creating applications for Web, Windows, Mobile & IoT devices.

Striking Highlights of .NET 5 Include

1. Developers will simply have more choices now when it comes to runtime experiences.
2. It leads to easy JAVA interoperability on all platforms.
3. Interoperability of Swift and Objective-C will be supported on different operating systems.
4. CoreFX will be extended to support static compilation of .NET, which means it will result in smaller support and footprints for more operating systems.

What is the .NET 5 release date?

.NET 5 is all set to release on 10th November 2020 and this release will mark the transition from aging .NET Framework to open-source and cross-platform .NET.

The main purpose of releasing this version is to allow unified .NET Client App projects to create deliverables for different platforms which include UNIX, Legacy Windows, HTML5, Windows, Macintosh, and Droid.

What is the .NET Future Roadmap?

The .NET future roadmap is all set to bring a huge change and for all the right reasons. The power-packed features and improvements of .NET are simply hard to miss in the first place.

The new framework is all set to provide a unified platform to create different applications, which can easily work on different operating systems, other devices, and mobile phones.

Below are striking features of .NET 5 features and improvements:

1. Single File Applications

A new publish type will be introduced, which will help to output the complete application and its entire dependency will be generated as a single file for the distribution purpose.

This vital feature is backed with x64 architecture on different operating systems like Linux, macOS, and Windows.

2. Language Updates

You can expect some sort of changes in the supported programming languages such as C#9, F#5, and Visual Basic.

3. Cloud-ready Deployment

The core run-time makes it easy for deployment with your app, which means ASP.NET is cloud-ready. With this, you can now expect session state, diagnostics, configuration, and cache to work smoothly both on cloud and premises.

4. Unified Core Framework

One of the most striking features of ASP.NET 5 is the addition of a unified programming model for all web pages applications.

Before the introduction of ASP.NET 5, Web API, Net Web Pages framework, and MVC were implemented separately, and hence this often led to conflicts and certain inconsistencies.

5. Dependency Injection Feature

Dependency injection also well-known as the “inversion of control” pattern is one of the reckoned design patterns. This can be utilized to build loosely coupled application components, which can be easily tested and maintained.

With .NET 5, you can expect great built-in support, when it comes to service locator and dependency injection patterns.

6. Quick HTTP performance

You can expect a new HTTP request pipeline with .NET 5, which is modular. To be more precise, it means that you can add only the required components.

When there are reduced pipeline overheads, this would benefit your app as you can experience better throughput and fine-tuned HTTP stack.

7. Tag Helpers

It is one of the important features, which has a big impact on the way, views are created in the .NET 5 MVC app. When compared to traditional MVC helpers, tag helpers prove to be a better alternative. It can be used to extend HTML elements inside the View with server-side functionalities.

8. Open-source & Cross-platform

Since .NET 5 is built over .NET Core, so it can work well on different platforms. Apart from building applications, developers can build their favorite development environment.

Apart from this, one can easily get access to framework code, which proves helpful in building the whole stack or build customized packages and share them as and when required.

9. Faster Development Cycle

The self-compiled feature of .NET 5 lets you save and run your application without the need for compilation each time, you make changes to your code. Rich set of code editors and tools of .NET 5 supports set up, code, build, and publish.

10. Self-host

With .NET 5, you get the flexibility of hosting your applications on IIS or you can choose to self-host it. Your application and its dependency are self-contained, independent for system installation of .NET.

You can host your app on any hosting platform or device. You just need to deploy your project to that host.

Major Changes – .NET 5 vs .NET core 3.1

Let’s clear the basics first. NET 5 extends support for Single File Apps, Windows ARM64, and ARM64 intrinsics; whereas .NET core is for a cross-platform operating system. Let’s talk about some of the major changes:

1. Deserialization: NET Core apps make use of default deserialization options. This major change simply means that .NET core apps can play a major role in the successful deserialization of numbers, which represent as JSON strings. It will not throw this as an exception.
2. Authentication: The integration process of a .NET core with Azure AD and Azure AD B2C authentication is made available by Microsoft.Identity.Web package.

Major Changes – NET 5 vs NET Framework

Following are some of the basic differences between them,

When to Choose .NET 5?

• For cross-platform needs
• Microservices architecture
• Docker Containers
• Scalable and high-performance systems
• Side-by-side .NET versions

When to Choose a NET Framework?

• .NET Framework apps
• Third-party libraries or NuGet packages not supportive for .NET 5
• .NET technologies not available for .NET 5
• Application uses a platform that doesn’t support .NET 5

Conclusion

.NET 5 is packed with nice upgrades, power-packed features, and improvements. It has a bright future ahead as you can now use the same languages and .NET APIs for targeting various application types, chip architectures, and operating systems.

Quick Read

• NET Core vs NET Framework: Complete Comparison with Pros and Cons

Explore more – Microsoft .NET Blog Resources

1. Announcing .NET 5.0
2. Announcing ASP.NET Core in .NET 5