At the TechEd event in Houston earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled ASP.NET vNext, once known as Project K. It’s the next version of ASP.NET, which has been redesigned from the ground up.
Microsoft says the goal is to create a “lean and composable” .NET stack for building modern cloud-based apps. Here’s the presentation:
Microsoft’s Scott Hanselman talks more about ASP.NET vNext here:
“ASP.NET vNext, and this is very, very early, we’re releasing a 0.1 release – alpha release,” says Hanselman. Microsoft lists the following features of this version:
- vNext includes new cloud-optimized versions of MVC, Web API, Web Pages, SignalR, and Entity Framework.
- MVC, Web API, and Web Pages will be merged into one framework, called MVC 6. The new framework removes a lot of overlap between the existing MVC and Web API frameworks. It uses a common set of abstractions for routing, action selection, filters, model binding, and so on. You can use the framework to create both UI (HTML) and web APIs.
- ASP.NET vNext apps can use a cloud-optimized subset of .NET vNext. This subset is factored for server and web workloads, has a smaller footprint than the full .NET vNext, and supports side-by-side deployment.
- MVC 6 has no dependency on System.Web. The result is a leaner framework, with faster startup time and lower memory consumption.
- vNext will support true side-by-side deployment. If your app uses the cloud-optimized subset of .NET vNext, you can bin deploy all of your dependencies, including the .NET vNext (cloud optimized) packages. That means you can update your app without affecting other applications on the same server.
- vNext is host agnostic. You can host your app in IIS, or self-host in a custom process. (Web API 2 and SignalR 2 already support self-hosting; ASP.NET vNext brings this same capability to MVC.)
- Dependency injection is built into the framework. Use your preferred IoC container to register dependencies.
- vNext uses the Rosyln compiler to compile code dynamically. You will be able to edit a code file, refresh the browser, and see the changes without rebuilding the project.
vNext is open source and cross platform.
You can get the full overview here.
Image via Microsoft
