What’s new in ASP.NET 5 RC 2 or ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC

ASP.NET 5 RC 2 or ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC as ASP.NET 5 is now ASP.NET Core 1.0 should be out mid Feb 2016. Since we are still not sure about the new release name, so for this post let’s continue to use ASP.NET 5 RC 2. Earlier I posted about what’s coming in ASP.NET 5 RC 2, in which I mentioned about a new dotnet cli tool to replace DNX commands. In this post, let’s take a looks at what’s new in ASP.NET 5 RC 2 release as shown by ASP.NET team in NDC conference earlier this year. This is not a complete list and I believe this list will grow when ASP.NET 5 RC 2 comes.

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What’s new in ASP.NET 5 RC 2

• Till ASP.NET 5 RC 1, every ASP.NET 5 project is a DNX project but that’s no more valid with RC 2 release.
• A new CLI tool named “dotnet” to replace “dnx”.
• ASP.NET 5 RC 1 project has static void main() method in startup.cs file, which is the entry point for ASP.NET 5 application. And in RC 2, ASP.NET application changes to true console application. Which means that ASP.NET 5 applications are self hosted all the time. So from your console application, you will call ASPNETHosting API to build your code and run ASP.NET part of your application.
• Support for NuGet Content is back. Nuget content is the ability to put non dll via nuget in your application.
• Visual Basic and F# were not supported previously by ASP.NET 5 but now the new CLI tool supports new language via dotnet compile.
• Incremental compilation – One of the features of DNX was dynamic compilation. So when you run dnx commands on any ASP.NET source application, it compiles them in memory and launch the application. But as soon as you make any code changes, dnx server is stopped. So when you use dnx again, it recompiles the whole application, instead of compiling only what’s changed. So with RC 2, incremental compilation is back. Just compile what is changed.
• .csproj applications now can reference .xproj, which was not possible with DNX projects.

Project.json changes

• Project.json now allows to set compiler in compilerOption section. So when dotnet compile command is executed, it will look in Project.json file.
• You can also set gcMode (Garbage Collection Mode) in Project.json file under runTimeOptions section.
• commands section is gone.
• dnx46 now becomes net46

That’s all for now. I will be updating this list when ASP.NET RC 2 finally comes so keep visiting for updates and share this in your network.

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