Abstract

Apache Cordova is one of the most popular frameworks for cross-platform mobile development. Web developers can build apps for iOS, Android, and Windows based on the same frameworks they use for the Web by using a shared codebase. However, the methods for improving mobile app performance can be different from those web developers use for web apps.The talk outlines what impacts “native performance” and explains how the startup time, as well as the overhead of resume, memory, communication, and the Web, can all contribute to the performance of Cordova apps. To build Cordova apps that perform well, it’s important to understand how to avoid common pitfalls and how to use the technologies in the most efficient ways. Tools are introduced for performance tests and demonstrated on how to measure mobile app performance by using diagnostic tools for different platforms. Doris also shares practical tips for building faster Cordova apps by exploring Document Object Model (DOM) complexity, animation techniques, and memory management.

Presentation

Abstract

How to build web sites that work well across various browsers versions and devices is always challenging for web developers. In the session, you’ll learn the best practices and strategy to develop cross-browser web sites that will work with the existing and future browsers. Tools for interoperability tests, cross-browser fundamentals, and tips and tricks on HTML5, CSS, JavaScript development will be illustrated. Feature detection, CSS prefix, and fallbacks will all be examined in the session. A real life example will be used to demonstrate step by step how to build cross-browser and plug-in-Free experiences. With a couple of simple changes to your sites, you can take advantage of web standards and HTML5 features today without breaking your sites in the future. Expect a lot of demos and code in the session.

Action

If you are migrating your website onto Microsoft new browser Edge and run into some problems, please contact me so I can help you further.

Presentation

As some of you may know, this weekend Oct 3-4, 2015 is Silicon Valley Code Camp aka. the BIGGEST CODE CAMP IN NORTH AMERICA!  I will be presenting two sessions there:

Building Web Sites that Work Everywhere

How to build web sites that work well across various browsers versions and devices is always challenging for web developers. In the session, you’ll learn the best practices and strategy to develop cross-browser web sites that will work with the existing and future browsers. Tools for interoperability tests, cross-browser fundamentals, and tips and tricks on HTML5, CSS, JavaScript development will be illustrated. Feature detection, CSS prefix, and fallbacks will all be examined in the session. A real life example will be used to demonstrate step by step how to build cross-browser and plug-in-Free experiences. With a couple of simple changes to your sites, you can take advantage of web standards and HTML5 features today without breaking your sites in the future. Expect a lot of demos and code in the session.

Latest Trends in Web Frameworks

What’s the latest trends in web frameworks? The session will first go over the fundamentals of the frameworks such as SPA, MVC, etc. The session will then briefly introduce a list of popular frameworks and compare the differences between them. The session will focus on examining two of today’s hottest frameworks Angular and Backbone. Which one will you use? This talk will take an intimate look at Angular and Backbone and explore their differences in depth. Sample apps developed both in Angular and Backbone will be used to illustrate the framework difference. By the end of the session, you will have a good understanding of the latest trends in web frameworks and development.

A full of all the Microsoft tracks can be found here.  Make sure to stop by the Microsoft booth and say hi this weekend!

I had the honor to present the keynote and sessions at the AngularU Conference in San Francisco this week.  It’s a great conference with many excellent speakers.  I had a great time there.  Many of you have asked for my presentation.  I am sharing with you here.

Angular: Go Mobile!

How could you develop a mobile app across iOS, Android or windows devices? We’ll show how Apache Cordova opens the world of mobile app development to web developers. In the session, a “To Do” app using Angular will be explored and then it will be demonstrated step by step on how to turn it into a mobile app, with access to native device capabilities. Along the way, you'll also learn what kind of apps are best-suited for the hybrid architecture and when to make the switch from web app to mobile app.

Course Description:

Want to maximize the performance of your modern websites and apps with JavaScript and HTML5? This course Practical Performance Tips to Make Your HTML/JavaScript Fast has the practical strategies, tips, and tricks you need, along with helpful demos and best practice guidelines. Watch this team of experts for a detailed look at how to write fast JavaScript. Explore the fundamentals of web performance, tools for monitoring and measuring JavaScript/HTML speed, and techniques to optimize media usage. Plus, get a look at memory and UI performance in a game case study, and see how to structure markup efficiently.

Watch the Course:

https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/practical-performance-tips-to-make-your-html-javascript-fast

Course Demo:

https://github.com/doristchen/HTMLJS_Perf

Note, the course is separated into modules and each module is separated into sessions.  You can watch one session at a time for as short as 10 minutes.  The course will remember where you are and you can continue from the watch.

Details of the Course:

Module 1: Web Performance 101

We will introduce the fundamentals of web performance, the methodology of performance tuning, and the common pitfalls you should avoid in performance optimization.

Module 2: Tools and Measurement

We will introduce tools that will can monitor and measure your JavaScript/HTML performance.

Module 3: Strategies and Principles: Network Requests, Bytes Downloaded

We will explore the strategies and principles on how to quickly respond to network requests, and techniques on how to minimize bytes downloaded.

Module 4: Strategies and Principles: Media Usage

We will explore the tips and tricks on how to optimize media usage and how to take advantage of CSS3.

Module 5: Strategies and Principles: Memory, Markup, Execution

In this module, we will continue to examine how to manage the memory usage, how to structure the markup efficiently, and how to optimize execution.

Module 6: Write Fast JavaScript

How to write good and fast JavaScript? We will show you how to initialize JavaScript on demand and how to work efficiently with JSON, .innerHTML,, numbers, arrays, and DOM objects.

Module 7: Case Study: Casual Game performance tuning

A casual game is used to demonstrate step by step how to improve startup time, UI responsiveness, and memory efficiency based on the strategies, principles and best practices we have learned in the previous modules.

Date/Time: February 25, 2015, 9am‒5pm PST
Registration: https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/practical-performance-tips-to-make-your-html-javascript-faster

Wish you could speed up your apps and websites?  Join us on February 25, for “Practical Performance Tips to Make Your HTML/JavaScript Faster,” and get a detailed look at how to write fast JavaScript. We’ll walk through the fundamentals of web performance, tools for monitoring and measuring JavaScript/HTML speed, and techniques to optimize media usage.

We’ll even explore memory and UI performance in a game case study and see how to structure markup efficiently. Get practical guidelines, strategies, tips, and tricks you need to speed up your apps, in this helpful course.

Course Outline

• Web Performance 101
• Tools and Measurement
• Web Performance: Strategies and Principles
•  ​Write Fast JavaScript
• Case Study: Casual Game Performance Tuning

Instructors

Dr. Doris Chen | Microsoft Senior Technology Evangelist | @doristchen

​Doris Chen is a Senior Technology Evangelist at Microsoft for the Western region of the United States, specializing in web technologies (HTML5, jQuery, JavaScript, Ajax, and Java). She received her PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in computer engineering, specializing in medical informatics. Doris has more than 18 years of experience in the software industry, working in several open source web tier technologies, Java platform, .NET, and distributed computing technologies.

Doris has developed and delivered more than 400 keynotes, technical sessions, and trainings worldwide. She represents Microsoft at numerous international conferences and user groups, including O'Reilly OSCON, Fluent, Dev Nexus, HTML5 Dev Conference, WebVisions,  JavaOne, SD Forum, HTML5 and JavaScript meetups, and worldwide User Groups. Doris works to create and foster the open source community around Java, NetBeans, Glassfish, and related technologies. Before joining Microsoft, she was a Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. Find her online on her blog.

John-David Dalton | ​ Microsoft Program Manager ​| ​@jdalton

​John-David Dalton is a Program Manager at Microsoft, working on the Chakra JavaScript engine, helping  to make web applications, animations, and games run faster and smoother in Internet Explorer. He is also the creator of Lo-Dash, co-maintainer of jsPerf and Benchmark.js, and a contributor to other open source projects to help developers be more productive and to write better JavaScript.​

Register now!

https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/practical-performance-tips-to-make-your-html-javascript-faster

In the talk, it starts with highlighting the new HTML5 and CSS3 features in modern browsers, then it illustrate how easy it is to convert a web application to a modern app.  Finally it introduces Apache Cordova project and how feasible it is to leverage the web content (HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript) and convert it into an app that will run cross platforms on Android, iOS and Windows.

Angular or Backbone, which one you will use in your mobile app? How could you develop a mobile app across iOS, Android or windows devices? This talk will take an intimate look at two of today’s most popular frameworks, Angular and Backbone and explore their differences. We’ll show how Apache Cordova opens the world of mobile app development to web developers. In the session, we will demonstrate a “To Do” app using Angular and Backbone, with access to native device capabilities. We’ll compare the frameworks when transported to the world of mobile app development. Along the way, you'll also learn what kind of apps are best-suited for the hybrid architecture and when to make the switch from web app to mobile app.

Visual Studio Community 2013

Q: What is Visual Studio Community 2013? 

A: Visual Studio Community 2013 is a free full-featured IDE for  developers building apps across devices, desktops, and the cloud. The community edition includes all the capabilities needed for a student, open source contributor, or small team to create compelling applications – powerful productivity features, cross-platform mobile tools for Windows, iOS, and Android, as well as access to extensions.

Q: Does this mean Visual Studio Express editions go away?  

A: Existing versions of Visual Studio Express (e.g. 2010, 2013) will remain, but we’re not currently planning to release an Express edition in the 2015 wave.  The community edition will become our first and best free offering for developers creating non-enterprise apps.

Q: Isn’t Visual Studio Community really just Visual Studio Professional?  

A: While the two editions share the same features today, the licensing terms determine who can use this product. We continue to invest in our paid offerings including MSDN subscription benefits and services, which many Visual Studio Professional users can take advantage of today.

Q: How will Microsoft monetize this move? 

A: This move is about providing developers with tools that empower them to build modern, competitive apps in today’s marketplace – whether those apps are free, paid, academic, or open source.

Q: What does this mean for MSDN subscribers of Visual Studio Professional?  

A: Visual Studio Professional with MSDN subscribers will continue to receive all the benefits of their MSDN subscription, including software, training, and credits for Azure cloud services, Visual Studio Online as well as the new e-Learning benefits we announced today.

Q: How will you regulate people who use this SKU? What are the guidelines?  How do you define “non-enterprise app”? 

A: Here’s a quick summary of how to think about usage (please refer to the EULA within the product for specific terms, and to the Visual Studio Licensing whitepaper for more guidance):

Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:

·         Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community, to create their own free or paid apps.

Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations:

·         An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects.

·         For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1M in annual revenue) no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research and classroom learning environment scenarios described above.

Q: What are the specific features of the Visual Studio Community 2013?  

A: Visual Studio Community 2013 shares the same features as Visual Studio Professional 2013 today and licensing terms determine who can use this product. Based on the target audience for this product, SharePoint, Office, LightSwitch and Cloud Business Applications are not included in the installation.  

Q: Will current Visual Studio extensions work for Visual Studio Community 2013?  

A: Yes, any extension that’s compatible with Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 should work with Visual Studio Community 2013.

Q: Can you install Visual Studio Community 2013 and Visual Studio 2013 Pro+ on the same machine?

A: No, you cannot install Visual Studio Community if you have Visual Studio Professional 2013 or above installed on that machine.  If you’ve installed Visual Studio Community first, and then install a higher level edition, Visual Studio Community will be upgraded to (replaced by) that edition.

Q: Can you install Visual Studio Community 2013 and Visual Studio Express editions on the same machine?

A: Yes.

Visual Studio 2015 Preview

What is new with Visual Studio 2015 Preview?

A: Visual Studio 2015 Preview contains many new features, updates to existing features and is further extended with additional releases coming out November 12^th.

Below you’ll find some highlights of features across core categories:

·         Cross-platform mobile development

·         Tooling for Apache Cordova™ – Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, which were previously released for Visual Studio 2013 are now built into Visual Studio 2015 Preview. With these tools you can create hybrid cross-platform mobile apps that are powered by the Apache Cordova™ framework and work on iOS, Android and Windows, while at the same time taking advantage of the powerful Visual Studio IDE features such as breakpoint debugging, IntelliSense code editors and much more.

·         Visual Studio Emulator for Android – Developers can now download an Emulator for Android that works with Visual Studio 2015 Preview. This new emulator, built by Microsoft is designed to be fast and reliable, easy to install and configure. It also enables developers to easily switch between different platform emulators without Hyper-V conflicts. To learn more and to download the emulator visit VS.com download page.

·         Cross-platform Development using C++ – Developers can now use Visual Studio 2015 to share, reuse, build, deploy, and debug code for use in C++ cross-platform mobile projects. Developers can create projects from templates for Android Native Activity apps, or for shared code libraries that you can use on multiple platforms and in Xamarin native apps.

·         Code Sharing Across Projects – Sharing code is a key component to any cross-platform project, and now developers working on Universal Windows using C# can use Shared Projects to reuse their code in Xamarin native apps, or in other projects such as WPF, ASP.NET and various other project types.

Web & Cloud development

·         ASP.NET 5 Preview – Web developers can now use Visual Studio Visual Studio 2015 to create ASP.NET 5 Preview applications, which are built as a lean and composable .NET stack for building modern web applications for both cloud and on-premises servers.

·         Improvements to Add Connected Services – Visual Studio 2015 Preview we’ve created a new capability to simplify the process by which developers connect their apps to cloud-based services such as Azure Storage and Azure Mobile Services, or O365 and even 3^rd parties such as Salesforce.

·         Sign-in and view resources for multiple Azure accounts – Visual Studio 2015 Preview enables you to be signed in simultaneously with multiple Azure accounts. View and manage Azure resources associated with those accounts in Server Explorer.

·         Environments hub in Team Explorer – Visual Studio 2015 Preview includes a new Environments hub in Team Explorer. This enables teams to manage Azure environments and share these environments with other team members. Developers can deploy applications to Azure environments from a Cloud Deployment Project, and view resources, logs, and activities related to their environments. For more information on what’s new for cloud developers please see the Azure SDK 2.5 release notes.

·         IDE productivity

o   Debugging & Diagnostics – Visual Studio 2015 enhances the Breakpoint capabilities with a new setting windows that allows developers to specify conditions and actions for breakpoints, including improved IntelliSense support for breakpoint conditions and actions. Developers also get PerfTips, a new feature to see how long code took to execute right from the code editor. Finally, there is also new support for using Lambda Expression in the debugger windows such as Watch and Immediate.

o   Code Editor – Visual Studio 2015 built on top of .NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn”) brings many new features and improvements to existing capabilities to the code editor. This includes new light bulbs for quick action access to common commands such as refactoring code, including a new enhanced preview of how the code will be effected. We’ve also added refactoring support for Visual Studio, as part of Light Bulbs enhancement.

o   Code Analysis & Testing – Visual Studio 2015 now supports a new enhanced live code analysis capabilities, along with code analysis extensibility to 3^rd party library developers through NuGet packages.  With this enhancements developer get live code, advising them of issues as they type code without having to rebuild the project. In addition when NuGet libraries are extended to provide specific code-aware guidance, the editor will also light-up those changes as if they were built-in, helping solve problems early in the development lifecycle. We’ve also added a new feature called Smart Unit Testing (formerly PEX from Microsoft Research), which will explore your .NET code to generate test data and a suite of unit tests automatically.

o   Visual Studio IDE – The Visual Studio 2015 IDE has been enhanced to better support high-resolution displays with new icons in locations such as command bar, tool window toolbars and many other locations. We’ve also added touch support to the code editor, which can handle touch commands and gestures such as scrolling, tapping, pinch-to-zoom, etc.

To see the full details on what’s new in Visual Studio 2015 Preview please visit our release notes.

Q: What is new for C++ in Visual Studio 2015 Preview? 

A: Visual Studio 2015 Preview contains many improvements for C++ developers, including a new capabilities to take C++ code cross-platform. Below you’ll find some highlights of C++ features across core categories:

·         Cross-platform Mobile Development with C++

o   Developers can now use Visual Studio 2015 to share, reuse, build, deploy, and debug code for use in C++ cross-platform mobile projects. Developers can create projects from templates for Android Native Activity apps, or for shared code libraries that you can use on multiple platforms and in Xamarin native apps.

·         Visual Studio IDE Productivity for C++ Projects

o   In Visual Studio 2015 we’ve made dozens of improvements around developer productivity, debugging and diagnostics. Some highlights include a new “move function definition”, “convert to raw string literal” and other new refactoring capabilities. We’ve also made improvements to the Profile Guided Optimization capability, improved “Find in Files” feature and added a new Native Memory Diagnostics capability to help developers understand their application use of memory right from Visual Studio.

·         C++ Language

o   In Visual Studio 2015 the C++ compiler and standard library have been updated with enhanced support for C++11 and initial support for certain C++14 features. They also include preliminary support for certain features expected to be in the C++17 standard.

·         C++ Build

o   In Visual Studio 2015 we’ve focused on improving build times in the typical edit/build/debug scenarios, which is where developer spend most of their time. As these builds are typically incremental, the linker is where most of the productivity time is lost. To help improve this, we’ve made changes to the static libraries that are referenced by other code modules so that they are now linked incrementally, which greatly improves build performance.

We’ve also made over 400 compiler bug fixes, including 179 submitted through our Microsoft connect website as customer feedback.

Q: What SKUs are included in the Visual Studio 2015 Preview release?

A: We are releasing Visual Studio Ultimate 2015 Preview.

Q: Will Visual Studio 2015 Preview support Windows 10 as support is not included in the release?

A: No. Visual Studio Preview does not include yet the tools for developing Windows 10 applications. The existing Windows 10 release does not target developers and therefore the tools and SDK are not yet available.

Q: Why is Microsoft putting so much emphasis on cross-platform development tools? Does this mean the company is moving away from Windows? 

A: Not at all. Today’s universe of mobile-first, cloud-first is diverse. We have a committed effort to engage all developers, from the enterprise to the startup, on every app they want to target. That means embracing any device including Windows, iOS and Android and any operating system for the cloud including Windows Server and Linux.  

Q: Where can I download the preview?  

A: Developers may download and try out the preview for the next versions of Visual Studio 2015 here https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=517106.

Q: Microsoft will now have built-in support for Android and iOS development within Visual Studio, why? 

A: Today’s universe of mobile-first, cloud-first is diverse. We have a committed effort to engage all developers, from the enterprise to the startup, on every app they want to target. That means embracing any device including Windows, iOS and Android and any operating system for the cloud including Windows Server and Linux.  

Q: What are shared projects?  

A: In Visual Studio, we've introduced a notion of shared projects for C#, C++ and JavaScript, making sharing code and assets between the Windows and Windows Phone heads of the same app as easy as possible. 

Q: Shared projects were originally for universal Windows apps, do they now extend across Android and iOS?  

A: Yes. Shared projects are the foundation for cross-platform mobile development in Visual Studio.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 and other releases

Q: What is new in VS 2013 Update 4? 

A: Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 brings with it many new features and bug fixes for Visual Studio 2013, Team Foundation Server 2013 and Release Management 2013.

Highlights of new or updated features include:

·         A new GPU Usage tool in the Performance and Diagnostics hub helps you determine whether the CPU or the GPU is the performance bottleneck

·         Improvements to JSON and HTML editors, as well as enhanced tool for Azure WebJobs.

·         Support for SQL Server 2014 from SQL Server Data Tool projects and other enhancements

·         Various enhancements and new features to Team Foundation Server, with highlights such as Git Pull Requests and other improvements to work planning, test case management, release management and other capabilities

For full details on what’s new in Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 please see our release notes.

Q: What is new in the latest CTP released today of Cordova Tooling for Visual Studio 2013 RTM?

A: The new release of Visual Studio Tooling for Apache Cordova is included in-the-box with Visual Studio 2015 Preview, or as an OOB release for Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 (Update 4 is required).

New features in this release includes:

• Update on save for Ripple – No need to rebuild!

• The ability to debug an iOS version of your app right from Visual Studio when deployed to the iOS Simulator or a connected device on a Mac

• Improved security and simplified configuration for the included remote iOS build agent

• An improved plugin management experience that includes support for adding in custom plugin to your project from git or the filesystem

• The ability to select platform specific configuration options from an improved config.xml designer

• Support for Apache Cordova 4.0.0

Today, Microsoft is taking the next big step for the Microsoft developer platform, opening up access to .NET and Visual Studio to an even broader set of developers by beginning the process of open-sourcing the full .NET server core stack and introducing a new free and fully-featured edition of Visual Studio.  At the same time, Microsoft is releasing previews of the next generation of Visual Studio, .NET and Visual Studio Online.

From Somasegar’s blog, here is the summary of some of the key news we are announcing today:

• Over the coming months, we will be open sourcing the full server-side .NET Core stack, from ASP.NET 5 down to the Core Runtime and Framework, and the open source .NET will be expanded to run on Linux and Mac OS X in addition to Windows.
• Visual Studio Community 2013 is a new, free and fully featured edition of Visual Studio, available today, with access to the full Visual Studio extensibility ecosystem and support for targeting any platform, from devices and desktop to web and cloud services.
• A preview of the next generation of our tools is available today with Visual Studio 2015 Preview and .NET 2015 Preview.  Together, these bring industry-leading cross-platform mobile development tools, deep support for cloud development, and great productivity improvements across the breadth of the developer experience.
• Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 is available now for every Visual Studio 2013 user, including dozens of improvements across the product plus several great new features.
• Visual Studio Online is expanding its DevOps portfolio with the new Visual Studio Online Release Management service and Visual Studio Cloud Deployment Projects.

For in-depth coverage of these announcements and more, tune in to the Connect(); event coverage on Channel 9 either live or on-demand.

Q and A

Some of the Q&A may help you to understand .Net open source and cross-platform.

.NET Core Open Source and Cross-platform

Q: With .NET Core, and the compiler being open sourced, is all of .NET now going open-source? 

A: Microsoft announced that it will open source the full server stack for .NET Core, which includes the runtime and class libraries. This complements the existing list of open source components for .NET including the new compiler platform (Roslyn) as well as libraries such as ASP.NET 5 or Entity Framework. All the code will be released under an MIT open source license, with an additional patent covenant that clarifies users’ patent rights.

Q: Are you open sourcing .NET so you don’t need to invest on it anymore?  

A: Not at all. With this move we are not decreasing any investment on .NET, just the opposite. We want to evolve .NET with key investments in areas like cross-platform cloud development to make sure it helps existing .NET developers to target new scenarios and to open .NET to any developer.

Q: Will these be hosted on GitHub or Codeplex?  

A: As part of making sure every developer can participate and contribute, we will be hosting these projects on GitHub.

Q: Why is Microsoft hosting projects on GitHub? What is the future of CodePlex?

A: Microsoft is meeting the community where they are and hosting the .NET open source projects on GitHub provides our community the ability to make the most impact for that new direction.

Q: Was open-sourcing .NET Satya Nadella’s idea as CEO?  

A: Microsoft has embraced the mobile-first, cloud-first world, however, the open-sourcing of our .NET technologies has been done over the years, and several of our top executives including Satya Nadella, played a role in the decision.

Q: What about the rest of .NET including the client libraries such as WPF, WinForms, etc.? 

A: In this phase we are focusing on implementing the full .NET Core stack for the server cross-platform and open source. Some of these components, such as the compiler platform (Roslyn) or the class libraries included, also apply to the client side. Other client libraries can be also covered by the extended open source license available for the .NET reference source. However, the cross-platform implementation does not apply to those libraries that are specific to the client such as WPF or Windows Forms.

Q: Why is Microsoft open-sourcing .NET? What will they gain?  

A: As part of Microsoft’s vision of embracing the diverse world of mobile-first, cloud-first, developer tools and technologies such as .NET are also evolving to meet that diversity and truly help every developer solve their challenges, no matter the platform they target. Opening .NET will greatly benefit the developer community, by encouraging community participation, increasing the transparency and meeting developers where they are.

Q: What Open Source license are you using for the .NET code being released today?  

A: All the code will be released under an MIT open source license that allows for the broadest compatibility with other open source licenses, including GPLv2.

Q. Why didn’t you use Apache 2.0 or another license?

A.  We wanted to be as inclusive as possible so other open source projects can build on top of .NET.

Q: The MIT license does not contain an explicit patent grant. How do we know what patent rights we have to use the code?

A: We are offering .NET under the MIT open source license with an additional patent covenant to clarify users’ patent rights.

Q: How much of .NET will be community-driven vs. driven by Microsoft? 

A: Teams in Microsoft developing the .NET framework remain unchanged, so we expect a significant contribution coming from these teams. However, we do encourage the Mono community and the broader developer community to participate in the requirements and design process, as well as direct code contributions.

Q: How will versioning be managed considering the fast change pace? 

A: Even if the projects are open source, Microsoft will provide a similar cadence of releases as in the past. We have been doing this in the past years with existing .NET projects such as ASP.NET with a big success. Early adopter developers can join the projects to get the latest additions, but majority of developers will use any of the big release waves, provided by Microsoft. These release waves provide a formal statement of technologies and packages that work perfectly integrated. Those umbrella packages will follow a year naming convention starting with .NET 2015, and will be aligned with the same versions in the corresponding Visual Studio release.

Q: What does going open-source mean for the Mono community? 

A: This is excellent news for the Mono community, since both projects will collaborate to benefit from each other. Work delivered in the core runtime will be available for implementation in Mono if the community wants so. Also, I the other direction, the .NET open source implementation can also leverage the know-how of the Mono community targeting Linux and Mac operating systems.

Q: What is .NET Native and how does it help developers?  

A: “.NET Native” means native code compilation. It is a Native Ahead-of-Time (AOT) runtime & compiler for .NET. It provides a lean & refactored .NET libraries and runtime and a compiler to binary powered by the same optimizing compiler backend as Visual C++ 

Benefits: It basically provides a comparable performance of C++ binaries with the development productivity of C#. 

Q: Is .NET Native released with this release?  

A: Yes, .NET Native is part of the .NET 2015 roadmap.

Q. Why do I need to use Windows Server with the new .NET support for Linux?

A: The Microsoft development platform provides an end-to-end solution including platform, development tools and services that brings an out-of-the-box, integrated and optimized solution for creating and managing applications. Windows Server is part of that solution, at the heart of the Microsoft development platform vision. It brings Microsoft’s experience delivering global-scale cloud services into your infrastructure with advanced capabilities in virtualization, management, storage, networking, virtual desktop infrastructure, access and information protection, the web and application platform, and more.