Differences between .Net Full framework and the .Net Core Framework 4.5 used by K runtime?

Question

I've seen videos introducing ASP.NET vNext and been keeping up with the recent announcement blog posts, but detailed information on what's been stripped from the full framework appears slim. Here's what I think I know so far:

• It's much smaller (11MB vs >200MB): http://davidzych.com/2014/05/24/getting-started-with-asp-net-vnext/
• Strong naming is gone: http://jeremydmiller.com/2014/06/09/final-thoughts-on-nuget/
• It's dumped System.Web
• It includes a merged MVC and WebAPI (however I don't believe this is part of the framework itself but rather dependencies that can be specified)
• Dependencies are completely managed through project.json, to the extent that the base

Are we basically looking at a framework that basically includes nothing more than what's in mscorlib in the full framework, with all else delivered via package management? And if this is the case, why would one need to target the framework specifically, as described here? http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2014/06/17/dependency-injection-in-asp-net-vnext.aspx

Answer 1

The reason they specifically target NET45 in the link you supplied is because AutoFac is built for and has a dependency on .NET 4.5. Without NET45 the code wouldn't compile.

My assumption is that once vNext gets closer and closer to release the Autofac (and StructureMap, and Castle Windsor, and ...) will release a version that targets the cloud optimized framework to remove the dependency.