Is Asp.net 5 (vnext) ready to use? [closed]

Question

Is Asp.net 5 (vnext) ready to use? I just downloaded the VS community version and I am trying to use the asp.net 5 API but it lacks on documentation.

Does anyone know where to find good documentation about creating asp.net 5 web applications?

Answer 1

Latest news

You might have already experienced the pain in migrating from RC1 to RC2 with all its renaming and refactoring.

Even if you started with RC2, you might have already become aware of coming changes that will impact you. For example:

• It has now been announced that project.json is gone and we are back to (improved) xml and msbuild as part of the future tooling release. This has lead to discussions on github like this one and posts like this one or this other one.

In short, there are those who think it is still wise to wait even if it is called RC or has a Go Live license. See Hadi Hariri's excellent post for example. Do your research and decide if it is mature enough for your next project!

Release Candidate 2 and RTM

The initial plans were to have RTM 1.0 ready for Q12016 but some fundamental changes are happening between RC1 and RC2, which has had an impact on that initial plan (See for example Scott Hanselman's update on RC2). For up to date info check their roadmap.

As of today (6th May 2016) they have shared an update on the schedule. According to this update, they have decided to split the release of the .Net Core runtime/library from that of the tooling:

• .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 1.0 RC2 runtime and libraries will be available in mid-May.
  • Tooling will be Preview 1 and bundled with this release.
• .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 1.0 RTM (release) runtime and libraries will be available by the end of June.
  • Tooling will be Preview 2 and bundled with this release.

From the same update, we can expect for RC2 .Net Core a Go Live license and official support, but the tooling isn't at the same level:

• The .NET Core 1.0 RC2 runtime is a true Release Candidate. It’s solid, stable, and it won’t change for RTM (except if something critical happens) and we feel good about it. It will have a “go-live” license, meaning you can get official support from Microsoft.
• The tooling that supports .NET Core and ASP.NET Core, including the new command line tools and bits that plug into Visual Studio & Visual Studio Code, aren’t there yet. It’s going to change before it stabilizes. We’re going to call this tooling release Preview 1.

Release Candidate 1

Microsoft has recently announced the release of the ASP.Net 5 Release Candidate 1. Details of the announcement here in the official blog.

It now includes a Go Live license:

Starting with the RC1, we are including a “Go Live” license. This license allows you to deploy an application written with ASP.NET 5 RC1 to a production environment and utilize Microsoft Support. The duration of this license for the RC1 last until the next release candidate or the completed release of ASP.NET 5 (called an RTM release) that is currently scheduled for Q1 2016. This license also covers running ASP.NET on Windows, Linux, and OSX.

There is also a new site http://get.asp.net/ where you can download the framework. (Which will also be included in VS 2015 Update 1)

Old beta days

ASP .Net 5 is not yet ready for production, is still a beta. From Scott Guthrie's announcement on the latest VS2015 and .Net4.6 release:

The ASP.NET 5 Beta 5 runtime packages are in preview and not recommended for use in production, so please continue using ASP.NET 4.6 for building production grade apps.

You can check the ASP .Net 5 schedule and roadmap on its github page, where they expect to have the 1.0 version ready in Q1 2016.

Documentation

These are the main places to find more information:

• The main documentation site is still under work but growing on docs.asp.net. (And is open sourced!)
• You can also check asp.net/vnext for information and tutorials.
• Finally, you can check the source code, its tests and tutorial/demo projects in its github repo located in github.com/aspnet.