Getting Started With ASP.NET Core 5.0

Introduction

In this article, I am going to explain Asp.Net Core 5.0, its features and benefits, Asp.Net Core versions, why you should use Asp.net Core, and how to set Visual Studio for developing Asp.Net Core 5.0 web applications. The latest version of Asp.Net Core is Asp .Net Core 5.0. It was released on November 10, 2020.

What is Asp.Net Core?

ASP.NET Core is a new version of ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft. It is an open-source framework for developing web applications and it can be run on Windows, Mac, or Linux. ASP.NET Core application can run on both .NET CORE and traditional .NET Framework (.NET framework 4.x). It is completely rewritten from scratch and it was initially launched as Asp.Net 5 but then was renamed to ASP.NET CORE 1.0.

Asp.Net Core is a Cross platform, High-performance, Open-source framework for building modern, Cloud-based, internet-connected applications.

ASP.NET Core Versions

What’s New in ASP.NET Core 5.0?

ASP .NET Core 5.0 version was released on November 10, 2020. Visual studio 2019 updated version 16.8 required for develop ASP.Net Core 5.0 web application.

Features

Net Core MVC & Razor page improvements.
MVC model binding improvements.
Model binding DateTime as UTC.
Support for C# 9 record types.
C# updates.
F# updates.
Visual Basic updates.
Text.Json new features.
Single file apps.
App trimming.
Windows ARM64 and ARM64 intrinsics.
Tooling support for dump debugging.
The runtime libraries are 80% annotated for nullable reference types.
Blazor Server & Blazor WebAssembly support and improvements.
Built-in OpenAPI and Swagger UI support for Web APIs.
SignalR Hub filters and parallel Hub invocations.
Azure AD authentication with MIcrosoft.Identity.Web.
Auto browser refresh with dotnet watch.
HTTP/2 and gRPC performance improvements.
Performance improvements,
Garbage Collection (GC)
Text.Json
Text.RegularExpressions
Async ValueTask pooling
Container size optimizations
Many more areas

To get more details about Asp.Net Core 5.0 Click here.

Prerequisites

Install Visual Studio 2019 updated version 16.8 or later
Install .NET SDK 5.0 or Later

History of ASP.NET Core Versions

The below table show the details of Asp.Net Core Versions.

Version	Release Date	Development/Editor Tool	Support
Asp.Net Core 1.0	Jun-27-2016	Visual Studio 2015 updated version 3	1.0
Asp.Net Core 1.1	Nov-18-2016	Visual Studio 2015,2017	1.0,1.1
Asp.Net Core 2.0	Aug-14-2017	Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3	1.0,1.1,2.0
Asp.Net Core 2.1 (Long Term Support)	May-30-2018	Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.7	1.0,1.1,2.0,2.1
Asp.Net Core 2.2	Dec-04-2018	Visual Studio 2017 Version15.9	1.0,1.1,2.0,2.1,2.2
Asp.Net Core 3.0	Sep-04-2019	Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.3	1.0,1.1,2.0,2.1,2.2,3.0
Asp.Net Core 3.1 (Long-Term Support)	Dec-03-2019	Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.4	1.0,1.1,2.0,2.1,2.2,3.0,3.1
Asp.Net Core 5.0	Nov-10-2020	Visual Studio 2019 Version 16.8 or later	1.0,1.1,2.0,2.1,2.2,3.0,3.1,5.0

Why Use Asp.Net Core?

Cross platform: It can run on windows, Linux and Mac.
Better performance: net core does not depend on system.web.dll for communication between Browser-server. In Asp.net core everything is packages which we need for our application. Packages reduce the request pipeline and improve application performance.
Dependency Injection: Dependency Injection is in-built in Asp.Net Core.
Integration with Modern UI Frameworks: It supports modern UI like Angular, ReactJS and Bootstrap etc.
Hosting-Net Core application can be hosted on multiple Web server such as IIS, Apache, Docker etc. It is not dependent on IIS.
Open Source: It is a fully open source framework.
Testability: Unit testing is very easy in Asp.Net core application.
Side-by-side App Versioning-Net Core runs on .NET Core, which supports simultaneously running in multiple versions of applications.
Unified Programming Model for MVC and Web API-In Asp.Net Core both MVC Controller and API Controller are Inherits from the same controller base class.

Setting up Machine for Asp.Net Core 5.0 development

We need to install 2 pieces of software for developing our Asp.Net core 5.0 application.

An Editor/ Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
.NET 5.0 SDK or Later (Software Development Kit)

Step 1 - Download and Install an editor for Asp.NET Core 5.0 Development

I am using Visual Studio 2019 updated version 16.8 or later as the editor for Asp .NET Core 5.0 application development. You can use any editor of your choice.

Visual Studio
Visual Studio Code
Sublime
Vim
Atom
Etc.

Download and install Visual Studio

I am using Visual Studio 2019 16.8, so I need to install Visual Studio 2019 16.8 Community Edition because this is free.
You can download Visual Studio 2019 16.8 from this Link
To develop Asp .NET Core 5.0 applications in Visual Studio 2019 16.8, please select .NET Core cross-platform development workload when install.

Step 2 - Download and install .NET 5.0 SDK or later

You can download .NET 5.0 SDK or Later from this link

Depending on the operating system you have, download and install the SDK.

The SDK includes everything you need to build and run .NET core applications.
The .NET Core Runtime is already included in the SDK. So, there is no need to install .NET Core Runtime
The .NET Core Runtime includes just the resources required to run existing .NET Core applications.

Conclusion

In this article we explained the basics of ASP.NET core 5.0 and how to set up a machine for develop the Asp.NET Core 5.0 applications.