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Comment by DavidKarlas | Hacker News Reader

.NET is sane now... .NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 7... all cool, no more confusion going forward... .NET Framework(full Windows only Framework) is .NET Framework 4.x, stuck there forever only security patches...

Only remaining confusing part left in ecosystem is "ASP.NET Core", because even though .NET got rid of Core, latest version ASP.NET didn't

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It’s easy. You have .NET Framework 4.8 which is followed by netcore 3.1 which is followed by .NET 5 and now 6. 4.8 supports netstandard 2, core and 5 additionally support netstandard 2.1. You can then use ASP.NET with 4.8 or ASP.NET Core with 3.1 onward. Entity Framework is only supported on 4.8 and Entity Framework Core up to 3.1 support netstandard 2 so .NET 4.8 and 3.1 onwards both. But the versions after 3.1 (obviously they went to 5 there) only support netstandard 2.1 so only dot net core 3.1 and onwards.

Perfectly clear and reasonable.

Well, part of the problem with the naming for ASP.NET is that the .NET Framework version (WebForms) was simply called ASP.NET, so they couldn't just drop the "Core" like they did with .NET itself.

ASP.NET isn't only WebForms. It also covers the Razor engine as well as their WebAPI (API only).

btw. webforms is dead. thank god.

As far as I know that's because asp.net mvc 5 already exists. For example Entity Framework 6 already exists so the new stuff will still have the name core until the number is high enough that there is no legacy stuff with the same number anymore.

And Entity Framework Core unfortunately because EF6 was already a thing.

Yeah, hopefully as others have pointed out, with .NET 7 next year all the version numbers align so that ASP.NET and EF can drop "Core" again.

Searching the internet for help is going to be a nightmare, though.

Shouldn't be too bad, I don't think, if you remember the version number. Which anyone that worked in ASP.NET 4, 5 or 6 was generally pretty used to (a lot of things changed between versions even the "classic" .NET Framework days). I still have "fond" memories of fighting to find a specific EF6 answer that was different from EF4 or EF5, but that was still somewhat easier than having to remember to add "core" to all your searches lest you get classic EF3 results when searching for EF Core 3.x help. Having a version number high enough that you no longer need "core" is something I'm looking forward to.

There was an EF7 RC1 version, and .NET 7 isn't LTS. Dropping "Core" is better done in .NET 8 - or MS could pick an entirely new name.

I guess they could do that, but what makes you think they actually will?

I stated "hopefully … they can". I mangled the commas on that one, but that was the intended statement: "hopefully they will". I have no idea if they actually will.

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