Microsoft shows off the next release of ASP.NET
Microsoft officials is beginning to share publicly details about the next version of the company's ASP.NET, its server-side Web-development framework, on May 12.
At TechEd in Houston, Microsoft is showing off what officials are calling ASP.NET vNext, which was codenamed "Project K." Officials are calling this a "streamlined" and "cloud-optimized" version of .NET.
The Open Web Interface for .Net (OWIN) is "taking over" the ASP.NET runtime, said Jeff Fritz, an ASP.NET expert. ASP.NET MVC v.Next will be OWIN-compliant, which means ASP.NET will allow developers to assemble and build their applications using Web components, giving programmers access to a bigger and more flexible set of building blocks for their server-side apps.
At its Build conference in April, Microsoft announced that it was making ASP.NET one of its open-source contributions to the .Net Foundation.
At TechEd, Microsoft also announced that it is building into Visual Studio tooling for the Apache Cordova platform, which allows development of multi-device hybrid applications using HTML and JavaScript. The message is that Visual Studio developers have a choice: They can build native Windows, iOS and Android applications using either .NET and Xamarin, or opt for HTML/JavaScript using Apache Cordova. The Community Technology Preview of the Apache Cordova integration is available today.
Microsoft also announced the release to manufacturing of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 at TechEd. Visual Studio Update 2 is a foundational piece of Microsoft's "Universal Apps" strategy. Using Update 2, developers can reuse more of their code when writing apps that will work on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1. The company also announced today that it is releasing a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and service hooks that integrate third-party services with Visual Studio Online.
Last week, Microsoft quietly rolled out .NET 4.5.2, which includes a number of bug fixes, security updates and "nominal" features, according to company officials. When Microsoft delivered .NET 4.5.1 last fall, officials said to expect the company to crank up the pace and make regular updates to .NET outside of major releases.