Understanding In-Memory Caching in .NET Core with IMemoryCache Interface

1. In-Memory Caching in .NET Core:
- In-Memory Caching is used to provide faster response to incoming requests by retrieving data from cache rather than the original source.
- Data Caching allows retrieval of data from cache as long as it doesn't expire.

2. Terms Related to Caching:
- Cache Hit refers to the requested data being in the cache, while Cache Miss refers to the data not being in the cache.
- In the case of Cache Miss, data is fetched from the data source and written back into the cache.

3. In-Memory Cache in .NET Core:
- In .NET Core, data can be written to cache, read, or deleted using the IMemoryCache interface in the Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory library.
- Various options such as AbsoluteExpiration, ExpirationTokens, Priority, Size, and SlidingExpiration can be used to manage the cache.

4. Usage in a Project:
- Memory Cache is enabled in the ConfigureServices method in the startup.cs class by adding services.AddMemoryCache().
- The IMemoryCache interface is injected in the related controller to use 'In-Memory Cache'.

Improvements and enhancements in .NET 8

.NET 8 is the latest version of .NET framework that includes numerous improvements and enhancements over its predecessors. Some of the key enhancements in .NET 8 include:

1. ASP.NET Core 2.0 - ASP.NET Core 2.0 is a significant improvement, as it includes features like built-in support for HTTPS, improved performance, and better support for built-in authentication.
2. JSON support - .NET 8 provides better support for working with JSON data, making it easier to parse and serialize JSON in your applications.
3. C# language improvements - .NET 8 includes several language improvements, such as better type inference, improved garbage collection.

Here are some of the improvements

• Native Ahead-of-Time (AOT) Compilation.
• Code Generation Enhancements.
• Garbage Collector Improvements.
• JSON Enhancements.
• Compression enhancements
• Randomness Tools.
• Cryptography Fortifications.
• Silicon-Specific Features.
• Time Abstraction.

About Monolithic and Micro-services Architecture?

Monolithic and micro-services architecture are two different approaches to software design. While monolithic design is a traditional approach where the entire application is developed as a single unit, micro-services architecture is a modern and modular approach where the application is broken down into smaller, interconnected services.

Monolithic Architecture:

In monolithic architecture, the complete application runs as a single unit. In simpler terms, the application is built as a monolithic block where all the components are tightly coupled. The codebase is large and complex and can be difficult to manage and maintain.

Monolithic architectures have been tried and tested for decades and have proven to be reliable, robust, and easily understandable. It is widely used in industries where real-time performance is required, such as finance, aviation, and healthcare.

Micro-services Architecture:

In micro-services architecture, the application is broken down into smaller, more manageable services. Each service focuses on a specific task or feature and can be developed and deployed independently. This modular approach ensures that services are loosely coupled, enabling them to be scaled or replaced individually.

Micro-services architecture is widely used in industries where agility is of utmost importance, such as the e-commerce and social media industries, where rapid innovation is critical. Micro-services architecture allows developers to cater to specific customer requests without affecting other services.

 

Pros and cons:

Both monolithic and micro-services architecture have their advantages and disadvantages. Monolithic architecture is simple and easy to understand, provides efficient performance, and requires little to no overhead. However, monolithic architecture can be difficult to manage and does not offer much flexibility.

On the other hand, micro-services architecture provides developers with better agility, scalability and offers better fault tolerance. However, micro-services architecture requires a considerable amount of overhead, and the system's complexity increases exponentially with the number of services.

Conclusion:

Both monolithic and micro-services architecture have their pros and cons. Choosing the right architecture depends on the specific needs of the organization and its business goals. While monolithic architecture remains a reliable and well-established option, organizations looking for a modern and agile approach often opt for micro-services architecture. Whatever the choice may be, it is essential to evaluate the requirements carefully before adopting a specific architecture.

Exploring Pros and Cons of Repository Design Pattern

In software development, the Repository Design Pattern provides an abstraction layer between the application's business logic and data persistence. By encapsulating data access operations, the Repository pattern offers several advantages in terms of maintainability, testability, and flexibility. However, like any design pattern, it also has its limitations.

In this blog post, we will explore the pros and cons of using the Repository Design Pattern to help you understand its benefits and considerations when incorporating it into your software projects.

Pros of the Repository Design Pattern:

1. Separation of Concerns: One of the primary benefits of the Repository Design Pattern is its ability to separate the business logic from the data access layer. By abstracting the data access operations behind a repository interface, the pattern promotes a clean separation of concerns, allowing developers to focus on business logic implementation without worrying about the underlying persistence details. This separation enhances code maintainability and makes the application more modular and easier to understand.

2. Improved Testability: The Repository Design Pattern facilitates unit testing by enabling the mocking or substitution of the repository interface during testing. This allows developers to write focused, isolated tests for the business logic, without the need for a live database or actual data persistence. By isolating the business logic from the data access layer, testing becomes more efficient, reliable, and faster, ultimately leading to higher code quality and easier bug detection.

3. Flexibility in Data Source Management: The Repository pattern provides a flexible mechanism for managing data sources within an application. By encapsulating the data access logic within repository implementations, it becomes easier to switch between different data storage technologies (e.g., databases, file systems, web services) without affecting the higher-level business logic. This flexibility enables developers to adapt to changing requirements, integrate with new data sources, or support multiple storage systems in the same application.

Cons of the Repository Design Pattern:

1. Increased Complexity: Implementing the Repository Design Pattern adds an additional layer of abstraction and complexity to the codebase. Developers need to create repository interfaces, implement repository classes, and manage the interactions between repositories and other components of the application. This increased complexity can be challenging, especially for smaller projects or simple data access requirements. It's essential to evaluate the complexity introduced by the pattern against the benefits it provides. Most of the developers are hesitant in adopting this or it adds another level of complexity.

2. Potential Overhead: The Repository pattern may introduce some performance overhead due to the abstraction layer and additional method calls involved. Each operation on the repository must be mapped to appropriate data access operations, which may result in extra computational steps. However, the impact on performance is generally minimal and can be outweighed by the advantages of code organization and maintainability.

3. Learning Curve and Development Time: Adopting the Repository Design Pattern may require a learning curve for developers unfamiliar with the pattern. Understanding and implementing the repository interfaces and their corresponding implementations can take additional development time. However, once developers grasp the pattern's concepts, it becomes easier to work with and can save time in the long run by simplifying data access management and promoting code reusability.

Conclusion: The Repository Design Pattern offers several advantages, including separation of concerns, improved testability, and flexibility in data source management. By abstracting data access operations behind a repository interface, the pattern enhances code maintainability, modularity, and facilitates efficient unit testing. However, it's important to consider the potential drawbacks, such as increased complexity, potential performance overhead, and the learning curve associated with the pattern.

When deciding to use the Repository Design Pattern, evaluate the specific requirements and complexity of your software project. For larger projects with complex data access requirements, the benefits of the pattern often outweigh the drawbacks. However, for smaller projects or simple data access scenarios, it may be more appropriate to consider simpler alternatives. By carefully weighing the pros and cons, developers can make an informed decision on whether to incorporate the Repository Design Pattern into their codebase. 

Overall, the Repository Design Pattern can be a valuable addition to software projects that require a clean separation of concerns, improved testability, and flexibility in data source management. By carefully considering the pros and cons, developers can leverage the pattern's strengths to create maintainable and scalable applications, while keeping in mind the trade-offs and potential complexities that come with its implementation.

In conclusion, the Repository Design Pattern offers benefits that help improve code organization, modularity, and testability, while providing flexibility in managing data sources. By understanding the pros and cons of the pattern, developers can make informed decisions on its usage, allowing them to design robust and maintainable software systems.

Exploring Pros and Cons of Factory Design Pattern

Software design patterns play a crucial role in creating flexible and maintainable code. One such pattern is the Factory Design Pattern, which provides a way to encapsulate object creation logic. By centralizing object creation, the Factory Design Pattern offers several benefits while also introducing a few drawbacks. In this blog post, we will delve into the pros and cons of using the Factory Design Pattern to help you understand when and how to effectively apply it in your software development projects.

Pros of the Factory Design Pattern:

1. Encapsulation of Object Creation Logic:
The primary advantage of the Factory Design Pattern is its ability to encapsulate object creation logic within a dedicated factory class. This encapsulation decouples the client code from the specific implementation details of the created objects. It promotes loose coupling and enhances code maintainability, as changes to the object creation process can be handled within the factory class without affecting the client code.

2. Increased Flexibility and Extensibility:
Using the Factory Design Pattern allows for the easy addition of new product types or variations without modifying existing client code. By introducing new concrete subclasses and updating the factory class, you can seamlessly extend the range of objects that can be created. This flexibility is particularly valuable in situations where you anticipate future changes or want to support multiple product variations within your application.

3. Simplified Object Creation:
The Factory Design Pattern simplifies object creation for clients by providing a centralized point of access. Instead of directly instantiating objects using the `new` operator, clients interact with the factory's creation methods, which abstract away the complex instantiation logic. This abstraction simplifies client code, making it more readable, maintainable, and less error-prone.

Cons of the Factory Design Pattern:

1. Increased Complexity:
Introducing the Factory Design Pattern adds an additional layer of abstraction and complexity to the codebase. With the creation logic residing in a separate factory class, developers must navigate and understand multiple components to grasp the complete object creation process. This increased complexity can sometimes make the code harder to understand and debug, especially for small-scale projects or simple object creation scenarios.

2. Dependency on the Factory Class:
Clients relying on the Factory Design Pattern become dependent on the factory class to create objects. While this provides flexibility, it can also introduce tight coupling between clients and the factory. Any changes or updates to the factory class might impact the clients, requiring modifications in multiple parts of the codebase. It's essential to strike a balance between loose coupling and dependency management when using the Factory Design Pattern.

3. Potential Performance Overhead:
The Factory Design Pattern introduces a layer of indirection, which may result in a slight performance overhead compared to direct object instantiation. The factory class must determine the appropriate object to create based on some criteria, which involves additional computational steps. However, in most cases, the performance impact is negligible and can be outweighed by the benefits of code maintainability and flexibility.

Conclusion:
The Factory Design Pattern offers numerous advantages, including encapsulation of object creation logic, increased flexibility and extensibility, and simplified object creation for clients. By centralizing object creation within a dedicated factory class, the pattern promotes loose coupling and enhances code maintainability. However, it's important to consider the potential drawbacks, such as increased complexity, dependency on the factory class, and potential performance overhead.

Like any design pattern, the Factory Design Pattern should be applied judiciously based on the specific requirements and complexity of your software project. By carefully weighing the pros and cons, you can make an informed decision on whether to incorporate the Factory Design Pattern in your codebase, leveraging its strengths to create flexible and maintainable software solutions.

Explain Factory Design Pattern?

The Factory design pattern is a creational design pattern that provides an interface for creating objects without specifying their concrete classes. It encapsulates the object creation logic in a separate class or method, known as the factory, which is responsible for creating instances of different types based on certain conditions or parameters.

The Factory pattern allows for flexible object creation, decoupling the client code from the specific implementation of the created objects. It promotes code reuse and simplifies the process of adding new types of objects without modifying the existing client code.

There are several variations of the Factory pattern, including the Simple Factory, Factory Method, and Abstract Factory. Here's a brief explanation of each:

1. Simple Factory: In this variation, a single factory class is responsible for creating objects of different types based on a parameter or condition. The client code requests objects from the factory without being aware of the specific creation logic.

2. Factory Method: In the Factory Method pattern, each specific type of object has its own factory class derived from a common base factory class or interface. The client code interacts with the base factory interface, and each factory subclass is responsible for creating a specific type of object.

3. Abstract Factory: The Abstract Factory pattern provides an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects. It defines a set of factory methods that create different types of objects, ensuring that the created objects are compatible and consistent. The client code interacts with the abstract factory interface to create objects from the appropriate family.

Here's a simple example to illustrate the Factory Method pattern in C#:

// Product interface
public interface IProduct
{
    void Operation();
}

// Concrete product implementation
public class ConcreteProduct : IProduct
{
    public void Operation()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("ConcreteProduct operation");
    }
}

// Factory interface
public interface IProductFactory
{
    IProduct CreateProduct();
}

// Concrete factory implementation
public class ConcreteProductFactory : IProductFactory
{
    public IProduct CreateProduct()
    {
        return new ConcreteProduct();
    }
}

// Client code
public class Client
{
    private readonly IProductFactory _factory;

    public Client(IProductFactory factory)
    {
        _factory = factory;
    }

    public void UseProduct()
    {
        IProduct product = _factory.CreateProduct();
        product.Operation();
    }
}
  

In this example, IProduct is the product interface that defines the common operation that products should implement. ConcreteProduct is a specific implementation of IProduct.

The IProductFactory interface declares the factory method CreateProduct, which returns an IProduct object. ConcreteProductFactory is a concrete factory that implements the IProductFactory interface and creates instances of ConcreteProduct.

The Client class depends on an IProductFactory and uses it to create and interact with the product. The client code is decoupled from the specific implementation of the product and the creation logic, allowing for flexibility and easier maintenance.

Overall, the Factory design pattern enables flexible object creation and promotes loose coupling between the client code and the object creation process. It's particularly useful when you anticipate variations in object creation or want to abstract the creation logic from the client code.

Explain Repository Design Pattern

The Repository design pattern is a software design pattern that provides an abstraction layer between the application and the data source (such as a database, file system, or external API). It encapsulates the data access logic and provides a clean and consistent interface for performing CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on data entities.

The Repository pattern typically consists of an interface that defines the contract for data access operations and a concrete implementation that provides the actual implementation of those operations. The repository acts as a mediator between the application and the data source, shielding the application from the underlying data access details.

Here's an example of a repository interface:

public interface IRepository<T>
{
    T GetById(int id);
    IEnumerable<T> GetAll();
    void Add(T entity);
    void Update(T entity);
    void Delete(T entity);
}
  

And here's an example of a repository implementation using Entity Framework in C#:

public class Repository<T> : IRepository<T> where T : class
{
    private readonly DbContext _context;
    private readonly DbSet<T> _dbSet;

    public Repository(DbContext context)
    {
        _context = context;
        _dbSet = context.Set<T>();
    }

    public T GetById(int id)
    {
        return _dbSet.Find(id);
    }

    public IEnumerable<T> GetAll()
    {
        return _dbSet.ToList();
    }

    public void Add(T entity)
    {
        _dbSet.Add(entity);
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Update(T entity)
    {
        _context.Entry(entity).State = EntityState.Modified;
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Delete(T entity)
    {
        _dbSet.Remove(entity);
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }
}
  

In this example, the IRepository interface defines the common data access operations like GetById, GetAll, Add, Update, and Delete. The Repository class implements this interface using Entity Framework, providing the actual implementation of these operations.

The repository implementation uses a DbContext to interact with the database, and a DbSet<T> to represent the collection of entities of type T. The methods perform the corresponding operations on the DbSet<T> and save changes to the database using the DbContext.

The Repository pattern helps decouple the application from the specific data access technology and provides a clear separation of concerns. It improves testability, code maintainability, and reusability by centralizing the data access logic. It also allows for easier swapping of data access implementations, such as changing from Entity Framework to a different ORM or data source, without affecting the application code that uses the repository interface.

Explain Generic Repository Design Pattern

A generic repository is a software design pattern commonly used in object-oriented programming to provide a generic interface for accessing data from a database or other data sources. It abstracts the underlying data access code and provides a set of common operations that can be performed on entities within a data source.

The generic repository pattern typically consists of a generic interface, such as ‘IGenericRepository’, which defines common CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations that can be performed on entities. It also includes a generic implementation of the repository interface, such as ‘GenericRepository<T>’, which provides the concrete implementation of those operations.

Here's an example of a generic repository interface:

public interface IGenericRepository<T>
{
    T GetById(int id);
    IEnumerable<T> GetAll();
    void Add(T entity);
    void Update(T entity);
    void Delete(T entity);
}
  

And here's an example of a generic repository implementation using Entity Framework in C#:

public class GenericRepository<T> : IGenericRepository<T> where T : class
{
    private readonly DbContext _context;
    private readonly DbSet<T> _dbSet;

    public GenericRepository(DbContext context)
    {
        _context = context;
        _dbSet = context.Set<T>();
    }

    public T GetById(int id)
    {
        return _dbSet.Find(id);
    }

    public IEnumerable<T> GetAll()
    {
        return _dbSet.ToList();
    }

    public void Add(T entity)
    {
        _dbSet.Add(entity);
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Update(T entity)
    {
        _context.Entry(entity).State = EntityState.Modified;
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Delete(T entity)
    {
        _dbSet.Remove(entity);
        _context.SaveChanges();
    }
}
  

By using a generic repository, you can avoid writing repetitive data access code for each entity in your application and promote code reusability. However, it's worth noting that the generic repository pattern may not be suitable for every scenario and should be evaluated based on the specific requirements and complexity of your application.

Explain Unit of Work pattern

The Unit of Work pattern is a software design pattern that provides a way to manage transactions and coordinate the work of multiple repositories in an application. It helps maintain data consistency and integrity by ensuring that multiple operations are treated as a single unit of work and are either all committed or all rolled back.

The main purpose of the Unit of Work pattern is to abstract the underlying data access code and provide a high-level interface for managing transactions and coordinating changes to multiple entities. It ensures that all changes made within a unit of work are tracked and persisted consistently.

Here's a basic example of the Unit of Work pattern:

public interface IUnitOfWork : IDisposable
{
    void BeginTransaction();
    void Commit();
    void Rollback();
    void SaveChanges();
    IRepository<TEntity> GetRepository<TEntity>() where TEntity : class;
}

public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork
{
    private readonly DbContext _context;
    private readonly Dictionary<Type, object> _repositories;
    private DbContextTransaction _transaction;

    public UnitOfWork(DbContext context)
    {
        _context = context;
        _repositories = new Dictionary<Type, object>();
    }

    public void BeginTransaction()
    {
        _transaction = _context.Database.BeginTransaction();
    }

    public void Commit()
    {
        _transaction.Commit();
        _transaction = null;
    }

    public void Rollback()
    {
        _transaction.Rollback();
        _transaction = null;
    }

    public void SaveChanges()
    {

        _context.SaveChanges();
    }

    public IRepository<TEntity> GetRepository<TEntity>() where TEntity : class
    {
        if (_repositories.ContainsKey(typeof(TEntity)))
        {
            return (IRepository<TEntity>)_repositories[typeof(TEntity)];
        }

        var repository = new Repository<TEntity>(_context);
        _repositories.Add(typeof(TEntity), repository);
        return repository;
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        _transaction?.Dispose();
        _context.Dispose();
    }
}
  

In this example, the IUnitOfWork interface defines the methods for beginning a transaction, committing or rolling back the transaction, saving changes, and retrieving repositories. The UnitOfWork class implements this interface and provides the concrete implementation.

The UnitOfWork class maintains an instance of the database context (DbContext) and a dictionary of repositories. The repositories are created lazily and stored in the dictionary to ensure that the same repository instance is used throughout the unit of work.

By using the Unit of Work pattern, you can ensure that multiple operations across different repositories are treated as a single unit of work. This allows you to maintain data consistency, perform atomic commits or rollbacks, and simplify the management of transactions in your application.

.NET 7 features

.NET 7 is so versatile that you can build any app on any platform.

Let’s highlight some scenarios that you can achieve with .NET starting today:

• Call an existing .NET library from React code running in the browser by including a streamlined .NET runtime optimized to run on WebAssembly.
• Access the contents of a JSON document stored in your SQL Server database using strongly-typed C#.
• Rapidly build and deploy a secure REST endpoint auto-documented with OpenAPI by writing just a few lines of code.
• Generate a streamlined native app using Ahead of Time (AOT) compilation from C# source and publish directly to a container image.
• Run a .NET Core app that uses built-in APIs to compress and archive content into a Linux-friendly tar.gz file.
• Materialize your vision for a mobile app on Android, iOS, and Windows using a single codebase and design that creates native code and components for each target platform.
• Reap the performance benefits of .NET 7 by automatically migrating your legacy apps using the upgrade assistant and modernize your Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) web services with the help of CoreWCF.
• Make it easier than ever for developers to kickstart new applications using boilerplate templates that reflect your architecture and design choices.
• Handle key combination and modifier keys better in Unix/Linux with Console.ReadKey.

What’s new in .NET 7

.NET 7 releases in conjunction with several other products, libraries, and platforms that include:

• ASP.NET Core 7
• Entity Framework Core 7
• .NET MAUI
• Windows Forms
• WPF
• Orleans 7

In this blog post, we’ll highlight the major themes the .NET Teams focused on delivering:

• Unified
  • One BCL
  • New TFMs
  • Native support for ARM64
  • Enhanced .NET support on Linux
• Modern
  • Continued performance improvements
  • Developer productivity enhancements, like container-first workflows
  • Build cross-platform mobile and desktop apps from same codebase
• .NET is for cloud-native apps
  • Easy to build and deploy distributed cloud native apps
• Simple
  • Simplify and write less code with C# 11
  • HTTP/3 and minimal APIs improvements for cloud native apps
• Performance
  • Numerous perf improvements

.NET 7 is Available!!

Download .NET 7 today!

.NET 7 brings your apps increased performance and new features for C# 11/F# 7, .NET MAUI, ASP.NET Core/Blazor, Web APIs, WinForms, WPF and more. With .NET 7, you can also easily containerize your .NET 7 projects, set up CI/CD workflows in GitHub actions, and achieve cloud-native observability.

Thanks to the open-source .NET community for your numerous contributions that helped shape this .NET 7 release. 28k contributions made by over 8900 contributors throughout the .NET 7 release!

.NET remains one of the fastest, most loved, and trusted platforms with an expansive .NET package ecosystem that includes over 330,000 packages.

Download and Upgrade

You can download the free .NET 7 release today for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

• Installers and binaries
• Container images
• Linux packages
• Release notes
• Breaking changes
• Known issues
• GitHub issue tracker

.NET 7 provides a straightforward upgrade if you’re on a .NET Core version and several compelling reasons to migrate if you’re currently maintaining a .NET Framework version.

Visual Studio 2022 17.4 is also available today. Developing .NET 7 in Visual Studio 2022 gives developers best-in-class productivity tooling. To find out what’s new in Visual Studio 2022, check out the Visual Studio 2022 blogs.

.NET Core 2.0 will reach End of Life on October 1, 2018

.NET Core 2.0 was released on August 14, 2017. As a non-LTS release, it is supported for 3 months after the next release. .NET Core 2.1 was released on May 30th, 2018.

Upgrade to .NET Core 2.1

The supported upgrade path from .NET Core 2.0 is via .NET Core 2.1. Instructions for upgrading can be found in the following documents:

• Migrate from .NET Core 2.0 to 2.1
• Migrate from ASP.NET Core 2.0 to 2.1

.NET Core 2.1 will be a long-term support release. Its recommend that you make .NET Core 2.1 your new standard for .NET Core development.

.NET Core 2.1 released

Latest .NET Core 2.1 includes improvements to performance, to the runtime and tools. It also includes a new way to deploy tools as NuGet packages. There are many other new APIs, focused on cryptography, compression, and Windows compatibility. It is the first release to support Alpine Linux and ARM32 chips.

With the release of .NET Core 2.1, You can start updating existing projects to target .NET Core 2.1 today. The release is compatible with .NET Core 2.0, making updating easy.
 

Here are features of ASP.NET Core 2.1 and Entity Framework Core 2.1

You can download and get started with .NET Core 2.1, on Windows, macOS, and Linux:

• .NET Core 2.1 SDK (includes the runtime)
• .NET Core 2.1 Runtime

.NET Core 2.1 is supported by Visual Studio 15.7, Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio Code.

How to get the IP Address of a Remote Socket Endpoint

Here is how we can IP address, you need to use below namespace library

using System.Net.Sockets;

IPHostEntry ipHostInfo1 = Dns.GetHostEntry(Dns.GetHostName());
// loop through list of system IP address 
// get the IP4 Address of the current machine
foreach (IPAddress ipaddr in ipHostInfo1.AddressList)
{
    if (ipaddr.ToString() == ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SystemIPAddress"].ToString())
    {
        strIpAddress = ipaddr.ToString();
        break;
    }

}

                
IPAddress ipAddress = IPAddress.Parse(strIpAddress);

Hope this helps!

What is .NET Core?

ASP.NET Core is a free and open-source web framework, and the next generation of ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

The framework is a complete rewrite that unites the previously separate ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web API into a single programming model.

Despite being a new framework, built on a new web stack, it does have a high degree of concept compatibility with ASP.NET MVC. ASP.NET Core applications supports side by side versioning in which different applications, running on the same machine, can target different versions of ASP.NET Core. This is not possible with previous versions of ASP.NET.

Features

• No-compile developer experience (i.e. compilation is continuous, so that the developer does not have to invoke the compilation command)
• Modular framework distributed as NuGet packages
• Cloud-optimized runtime (optimized for the internet)
• Host-agnostic via Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) support - runs in IIS or standalone
• A unified story for building web UI and web APIs (i.e. both the same)
• A cloud-ready environment-based configuration system
• A light-weight and modular HTTP request pipeline
• Build and run cross-platform ASP.NET Core apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Open-source and community-focused
• Side-by-side app versioning when targeting .NET Core.

Top 20 Developer Tools of 2016

Here are the list of top 20 Developer utilities that are must to have for Developer.

1. GitKraken: The downright luxurious Git GUI client for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
2. Atom: A hackable text editor for the 21st Century.
3. VS Code: A free, lightweight tool for editing and debugging web apps.
4. Git: A free and open source distributed version control system.
5. GitHub: A web-based Git repository hosting service.
6. Visual Studio: Developer tools and services for any platform with any language.
7. Sublime Text: A sophisticated text editor for code, markup, and prose.
8. Chrome DevTools: A set of web authoring and debugging tools built into Google Chrome.
9. Docker :An open platform for developers and system administrators to build, ship, and run distributed applications.
10. GitLab: Git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds, and wikis.
11. IntelliJ IDEA: A Java IDE.
12. PhpStorm : A commercial, cross-platform IDE for PHP.
13. Postman: A powerful GUI platform to make your API development faster & easier.
14. ReSharper : A Visual Studio extension for .NET developers.
15. Slack: Real-time messaging, archiving, and search for modern teams.
16. PyCharm: An IDE used specifically for Python.
17. Android Studio: The official IDE for Android platform development.
18. Notepad++: A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.
19. Xcode : an IDE for macOS/and iOS development.
20. Stack Overflow: The largest online community for programmers to learn, share their knowledge, and advance their careers.

Targeting .NET Platforms

You can build apps for many platforms and services by downloading .NET Framework targeting packs and SDKs and using them with Visual Studio.

Check this link for relevant platforms

PHP vs ASP.NET Comparison

Things that need to observe before finalize between PHP and ASP.NET on any project.

ASP.NET code executes a lot faster compared to PHP. In general most of time of pages rendering time dependent on accessing DB and querying database.

In connecting database ASP.NET is a lot better - in asp.net we typically use LINQ which translates our object queries into stored procedures in SQL server database. Also connection to database is persistent, one for one website, there is no need for reconnecting.
PHP, in comparison, can't hold SQL server connection between request, it connect, grab data from DB and destroys, when reconnecting the database is often takes 20-30% of page rendering time.

ASP.NET have two main frameworks designed for it (Web forms and MVC), installed with environment, where in PHP you must get a open-source framework. There is no standard framework in PHP like in ASP.NET.
Since PHP is open source, its popularity differs based on people usage. So every year a new framework will come up for PHP in top list.

Whereas ASP.NET language is so rich, standard library has solutions for very much common problems, for PHP its standard library very open to public and any one can override.

Regarding Costing, PHP, MySQL server, PostgreSQL server, Apache server, and Linux OS are all free and upgrades are also free. 
ASP.NET and IIS are free if you purchase Windows OS. There is a substantial licensing cost for a Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server and future upgrades. For example, Microsoft Server 2008 R2 Standard - 64-bit cost is about approximately $1029 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition For Small Business cost approximately $1038.

For Hosting, Now a days both hosting of PHP and .NET websites are no different. Both a similar or more over same when compared Windows and Linux environments.
PHP requires LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) which is popular among hosting companies. ASP.NET requires Windows hosting.

Until a few years ago, Windows hosting used to be significantly more expensive than Linux web hosting. This is hardly true today; you can easily find Windows hosts for almost the same price as Linux web hosts. When we have PaaS, Platform as a Service all hosting provides are offering Pay as you service. Ex: Azure, Amazon WS etc.,

PHP is platform independent and can run on any platform — Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows.

ASP.net is built to run only on Windows platform.

There has been much debate about this subject and most of the debates have been biased and have been tailored to promote one of the programming languages instead of informing the audience.
Scalability and ease of maintenance have nothing to do with whether you select PHP or ASP.NET platform. Web Application scalability and ease of maintenance primarily depend on:

• Programmers' experience
• Using the best programming practices
• Using a solid programming framework
• Following programming guidelines and standards

In my experience ASP.NET can certainly compete and surpass PHP in terms of raw speed. My personal opinion is that a ASP.NET-MVC compiled web application would run more efficiently/faster than the same project that would be written in PHP.

And this debate goes on and on!!!
 
Thank you

How to access a div or HTML controls is inside a gridview?

Here is an example of how to access a div inside the TemplateColumn of a Grid:

aspx:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Pick" HeaderStyle-HorizontalAlign="Center" ItemStyle-HorizontalAlign="Center">
<ItemStyle Width="60px" />
<ItemTemplate>
<div id="divpickstatus" runat="server">                                 
</div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

codebehind

protected void gridview_schedule_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
    {
        HtmlGenericControl divpickstatus = (HtmlGenericControl)e.Row.FindControl("divpickstatus");              
    }
}

Hope this helps.