coreclr opensource on github

If you’re a .NET developer you’re probably exited to hear that the .NET Core run time AKA CoreCLR has been released on GitHub.

The code currently is running on Windows with support for Linux and Mac promised in the cumming months. Very soon we will have the ability to write MVC 6 web apps in C# or your favorite .NET language using Visual Studio 2015 and then deploy to a Linux servewith official support from Microsoft.

What is .NET Core?

.NET Core is basically a stripped down and streamlined and rewritten version of the .NET framework removing all of the windows specific code and functionality. .Net Core will provide the core functionality of just in time compilation and garbage collection of your .NET code and will allow support running and deploying ASP.NET vNext Model View Control (MVC) web apps on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Why did Microsoft release CoreCLR as open source?

It isn’t altruism that has led Microsoft to open up CoreCLR. Over the past several years Microsoft has been loosing market share on the web server. PHP has been around for years and despite it’s bad design and numerous security issues it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  Ruby has been gaining ground for years, Java won’t die despite Oracles best efforts and many new start ups are taking a look at Go.  More than a few .NET developers are tempted to leave the Microsoft development world behind and take up development with one of these open source alternatives. Developers and development tools have been a major reason for Microsoft past successes. Microsoft is scared of losing these developers and the the “enterprise” customers that they work for, which make up the majority of their profits.  Opening up ASP.NET vNext and CoreCLR and giving away Visual Studio  for free is Microsoft’s attempt at keeping as many developers as possible in the Microsoft sphere of influence while at the same time hopefully attracting a few additional developers. They are hoping that once a developer gains experience working on C# in Visual Studio they are more likely to work on a desktop app using C# and Visual Studio than abandoning windows entirely for Linux.

Why am I so excited about CoreCLR on Linux?

I’ve been working with ASP.NET since it was in beta with brief hiatuses while working on Java, Perl and PHP web sites. During that time I’ve come to appreciate Visual Studio and C#.  C# is a great programming language and Visual Studio is undoubtedly the best IDE available today. Unfortunitly I’ve found myself working less with C# over the past couple of years. This has primary been due to the fact that deploying ASP.Net apps on Windows Servers is significantly more costly than deploying apps on an inexpensive Linux VPS. Soon the cost of deployment should no longer be an issue. I’m looking forward to writing ASP.NET MVC apps in C# using Visual Studio and deploying them to a Nginx web server.

Another area of concern that I’ve has is the performance of .NET apps vs. apps written in code that is natively complied such as C and Go. Fortuitously Microsoft has also announced .NET Native. Apps compiled with .NET Native utilizes significantly less memory and provides greater performance than apps using the just in time compiled common language runtime.

A year ago I doubt anyone would have believed you if you told them that Microsoft would be releasing ASP.NET for Linux and now it looks like it will be here by summer 2015.

Leave me a comment and Let me know your thought on .NET Core, ASP.NET vNext and .NET Native.