ASP.NET software’s first version was released in 2002 by Microsoft, as part of the version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. It was initially designed to provide a better web platform than classic ASP and ActiveX, one that would feel familiar to existing Windows developers. DXML was king, and the future was based around XML web services.
In the era of XML, Microsoft did not hesitate to push forward with IE in areas like XML data islands or the XMLHTTP ActiveX control. Few anticipated that other browsers would implement the latter as the standard XML Http Request API and that it will form the basis for what would be known as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or AJAX. Of course, browser standards were only a dream and techniques like JavaScript forking for multi-browser support were commonly promoted.
Enterprise software developers who were used to create desktop applications were increasingly moving towards web applications, often deployed on corporate intranets. It was then that Microsoft released the .NET framework 1.0 alongside Visual Studio.NET, with ASP .NET application development and web forms being a core part of the package. This gave developers of the Microsoft platform a much better way of building web applications than the previous mixture of classic ASP, ActiveX controls and VB6 DLLs.
The web is a fast-paced platforms and it was no surprise when the framework had no option but to adapt to the multiple changes that happened on the web and its surrounding technologies since its initial launch. From 2008 to 2014, ASP.NET software development began to take another turn. These changes influenced the development of ASP.NET MVC and ended up transforming ASP.NET into a much more flexible framework composed of multiple libraries that solved different problems.
From 2014, the process that would give birth to ASP.NET Core began. ASP.NET Core 1.0 was finally released in late June 2016. It took more than two years of development, but the result was certainly promising. The software came with advanced functions unlike its predecessors. ASP.NET Core has the ability to develop and run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is open-source and community-focused with integration of modern, client-side frameworks and development workflows. The software offers support for hosting remote procedure call (RPC) services using gRPC. It is alight weight, high-performance, and modular HTTP request with a cloud-ready, environment-based configuration system. ASP.Net Core also has a built-in dependency injection. Most ASP.NET development companies have this version.
