Exciting Times for .NET as Companies Join the .NET Bandwagon

I can honestly say that I love .NET almost as much as I love my wife. If only .NET were human…

Jokes aside, I have always advocated for .NET, even using Visual Basic. Coming from a VB background, it was difficult at first to adapt to the strange world of .NET. For me, this was more than thirteen years ago!

If you were Marty McFly, you quickly could hop into your Delorian and speed to the year 2002/2003. You then could look at the earlier version of the .NET Platform and compare it to today’s .NET Platform. Who would have thought that it will grow so quick and gain so much? A lot has changed in all of those years, and .NET has adapted to those changes! I personally cannot wait for new technology to be invented solely for the purpose of seeing how .NET can make it work better.

The .Net Framework

To get a bit of history concerning the .NET Framework, read the Codeguru .NET Framework FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on the Codeguru forum. To see the release dates for each of the previous versions of .NET, you can visit Wikipedia.

What Lies Ahead for .NET?

For .NET, the future does look quit rosy indeed. One indicator that the future is bright is the number of recent announcements from companies and organizations working with .NET. Here are some notable examples:

RedHat and .NET

  • A no-cost Red Hat Enterprise Linux developer subscription has been introduced.
  • A new site for .NET developers has been launched by RedHat (redhatloves.net).
  • .NET Foundation is joined by JetBrains, Unity, and RedHat on the Technical Steering Group.

Xamarin and .NET

  • Xamarin will now form part of Visual Studio to enable you to build Android, iOS, and UWP apps that you can upload to any app store.
  • The Xamarin SDK, which includes runtime, libraries, and command line tools, will soon be made open source.

Mono and .NET

  • Mono will form part of the .NET Foundation.
  • Mono has been re-licensed as MIT. From my understanding, this means that you can get a copy of the software and associated documentation files to use without limitation. You can copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies.

.NET Foundation Technical Steering Group

This group is .responsible for the formalization of roadmaps and reviews conducted by various .NET teams that gets shared as .NET open source projects.

Conclusion

.NET keeps on growing and it is becoming a really big powerhouse—exciting indeed. Don’t count it out yet; more companies and groups are continuing to get involved. Until next time, cheers!

Hannes DuPreez
Hannes DuPreez
Ockert J. du Preez is a passionate coder and always willing to learn. He has written hundreds of developer articles over the years detailing his programming quests and adventures. He has written the following books: Visual Studio 2019 In-Depth (BpB Publications) JavaScript for Gurus (BpB Publications) He was the Technical Editor for Professional C++, 5th Edition (Wiley) He was a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for .NET (2008–2017).

More by Author

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Developer Insider for top news, trends & analysis

Must Read