Ask HN: Is .NET good for web development now? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is .NET good for web development now?

3 pointswarent3 comments

I haven't done Windows development in almost 10 years and it has pretty much just been a joke to me since then. Recently I started working on a Unity project as a hobby which basically forced me to work on Windows.

Also, Unity is in C#, with some reluctance I figured "may as well try writing the supporting API server using C# too." Partly to see what it would be like, and partly to keep it all consistent.

So far the entire process has been very pleasant? Visual Studio is working pretty well. NuGet comes with all kinds of packages natively / professionally supported by Microsoft. All this MVC scaffolding is done automagically. You can stand up a full REST API with database integration in minutes. It also supports Docker / Linux natively apparently.

Has anyone had this experience, or is there some nightmare beyond this garden path? Is it possible that Windows / C# / ASP.NET stuff could be becoming more viable for web?

You start by talking about having done Windows development but are asking about .NET web development which has been cross-platform since .NET Core launched over a decade ago. You also don't need to be on Windows or use Visual Studio to do .NET web development; VS Code or Jet Brains' Rider IDE work on Linux and macOS as well (and I hear there is tooling for writing .NET web applications/code in vim and emacs as well but I'm not Jedi enough to use such tools).

As for "is it good"... it uses less memory and is faster than any interpreted language currently in use for web development. And, as you have noticed, deployment using Docker containers is possible everywhere Docker is supported. Surprisingly, AWS supports the current runtime of .NET faster than Python and Node (though they also drop support for .NET versions sooner than out-of-LTS versions of Python and Node).

Yes, .NET is an excellent choice for web development. It offers a powerful and versatile framework for building robust web applications. With the introduction of .NET Core, it has become even more popular and accessible, enabling developers to create cross-platform applications. .NET provides high performance, built-in security features, and a comprehensive set of development tools and frameworks.

It also boasts a large and active developer community, ensuring ample support and resources. Additionally, its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem further enhances its appeal. Overall, .NET remains a strong contender for web development, offering a reliable and efficient platform for creating modern web applications.

The gold standard for non BigTech .NET usage is probably Stackexchange [1]. It isn't popular on HN. But I believe it has always been "viable" for lots of companies.

[1] https://stackexchange.com/performance

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