Why do we need dnx or cross platform for web [closed]

Question

As per my understanding, DNX (.Net execution environment) is provided to support cross platform web applications, which sounds good but it would be more useful if it were to support desktop applications.

Why would you need a cross platform web based application ? usually a web application/web site is hosted once and it shouldn't be an issue to host it on IIS on a windows machine. Is there something with DNX that I am completely missing or is it somewhat useful for desktop/console based applications as well.

Answer 1

What if you had a web-based application that you intended to run on both embedded devices like a Raspberry Pi as well as more conventional servers? The Pi may not be able to run a full Windows installation and thus may need to run Mono or some alternative solution.

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The idea of a previous place was to have a self-configured, low power solution for doing some tracking through RFID. The embedded devices would have to have a scaled down version of the system but be able to synchronize with the bigger systems as there could be various reports and other data to be generated on the big servers in the overall system. Imagine tracking wildlife or a big farmer's field with various sensors that could report the data that then has to get sent up to the big central DB so data can be compared over time with bigger resources than the embedded device would have. Thus, you could have a dozen or so of the small embedded devices in the field and have a beefy server back at a home base that could generate reports, maintain dashboards, etc. from traditional infrastructure in terms of electricity, connectivity, etc.

There was also the potential for this to lead to something like Skynet if the embedded devices could form a collective consciousness but the project never got to that stage of things.