What is .Net?

Ease of development

Developers like to use .NET because it includes many tools that make their work easier. For example, using the Visual Studio suite, developers can write code faster, collaborate efficiently, and test and fix their code efficiently.  The ability to reuse code between implementations reduces the cost of development.

High-performing applications

.NET applications provide faster response times and require less computing power. They have strong built in security measures and efficiently perform server-side tasks like database access. 

Community support

.NET is open source, which means that anyone can get access to use, read, and modify it freely. An active community of developers maintains and improves the .NET software. The .NET Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization established to support the .NET community. It provides learning resources, open-source .NET projects, and various events for .NET developers.

C# (pronounced C sharp), F# (pronounced F sharp), and Visual Basic are the three Microsoft-supported languages for NET development. Different companies and developers have also created other languages that work with the .NET platform.

C#

C# is a simple, modern, and object-oriented programming language. With syntax similar to the C family of languages, C# is familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

F#

F# has lightweight syntax and requires very little code to build software. It is an open-source language that makes it easy to write succinct, robust, and high-performing code. It also has a powerful programming rules system and a convenient standard library for building mission-critical, correct, fast, and reliable software.

Visual Basic

Visual Basic is an object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft. Using Visual Basic makes it fast and easy to create type-safe .NET apps. Type safety is the extent to which a programming language discourages or prevents logical coding errors.

Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) languages

Languages like ClojureCLR, Eiffel, IronPython, PowerBuilder, and many others also work on the .NET platform. This is because .NET implements the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). You can think of CLI as a template for creating .NET-compatible languages.

The application model frameworks are a collection of developer tools and libraries that support fast and efficient .NET project development. Different frameworks exist for different types of applications, such as those listed below.

Web applications

The ASP.NET framework extends the .NET developer platform specifically for building web-based applications. It supports web technologies such as REST APIS, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It provides a built-in user database with multi-factor and external authentication. ASP.NET supports industry-standard authentication protocols with a built-in security mechanism to protect your .NET apps from cyberattacks.

Mobile applications

You can use Xamarin/Mono to run .NET apps on all the major mobile operating systems, including iOS and Android. Xamarin includes Xamarin.Forms, an open-source mobile user interface framework. .NET developers use Xamarin.forms to create a consistent user experience across mobile platforms. All .NET apps can look the same, even on different mobile devices.

Desktop applications

You can use Xamarin for desktop application development. Additionally, Universal Windows Platform extends .NET Windows 10 application development. Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Forms are other frameworks for user interface design on Windows.

Other applications

With ML.NET, you can develop and integrate custom machine learning models into your .NET applications. You can use .NET IoT Libraries to develop applications on sensors and other smart devices. For any solutions not available in the frameworks, you can find many specific function libraries on the public NuGet repository. You can use Nuget to create, share, and use many .NET libraries for almost any purpose.