When to use .NET
In this unit, you'll learn about when you might want to use .NET. When does it make sense to choose .NET? What can you build with .NET?
.NET is for projects large and small
You might wonder if .NET is the right ecosystem to invest your time in learning. Millions of developers use .NET every day to do amazing things. It gives them tools to build the kinds of applications that matter to them.
Choose .NET when productivity matters
After you learn how to build an application based on one app model, you can easily apply your learning to something else, even if it uses a different app model. For instance, after you learn how to build a web application, your .NET skills translate to building a mobile app.
Repurposing your knowledge reduces the time investment involved in learning a new programming model or language. Your company saves time and expense when you're tasked with new challenges.
Choose .NET for enterprise-scale applications
.NET is popular in enterprises for several reasons. Advantages include its ecosystem and its integration with other Microsoft products, including Azure cloud services and on-premises server products. Further, .NET is a strongly typed system, so it avoids many of the bugs that can arise in loosely typed systems. Developers can choose to use an object-based paradigm in C#, or a functional-based paradigm in F#. They'll use the language that best fits the kinds of problems they need to solve.
Choose .NET for prototypes, start-ups, and small-scale applications
.NET is also popular for small projects because of its long history of improvements to the design of languages, APIs, and tools based on customer feedback and telemetry. You can use it to develop full-featured software quickly for prototyping purposes. Furthermore, .NET can run on inexpensive hardware and cloud services. It also outperforms other popular platforms, so it's a great fit for start-up businesses.
Choose .NET for cloud and AI applications
The Azure SDK for .NET allows developers to provision and manage Azure resources. Alternatively, Azure App Service and Azure Functions can host applications built using .NET languages.
ML.NET is a free machine learning library for .NET languages. It enables model-based capabilities for machine learning analysis and prediction.
Choose .NET to build IoT applications
You can use .NET to build IoT applications for IoT devices and scenarios. IoT applications typically interact with sensors, displays, and input devices that require the use of general-purpose I/O (GPIO) pins, serial ports, or similar hardware. For example, you can find libraries that work with popular boards like Raspberry Pi and HummingBoard.