[HN Gopher] .NET 5.0 - New APIs
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.NET 5.0 - New APIs
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 109 points
Date : 2020-09-22 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.ndepend.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.ndepend.com)
| SparksAndQuarks wrote:
| I'm excited about new native interop api (function pointers,
| UnmanagedCallersOnlyAttribute, etc.). It removes "managed code
| tax" for calling into dynamically loaded OpenGL/Vulkan methods
| from c#.
|
| I'm playing around with GLFW via PInvoke, which meant marshalling
| openGL function pointers into managed delegates. In net5.0
| preview, I can simply cast IntPtr into a function pointer, and
| boy, a call to your average openGL method is literally an order
| of magnitude faster.
|
| Similar optimizations might have been technically possible
| before, but it required some icky bytecode tinkering.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This sounds very interesting. I didn't realize there was that
| much of a difference using the new APIs.
|
| I have been playing around with interop against LibJpegTurbo
| Encode() and I am now curious if I've been leaving a ton of
| performance on the table.
| mads_ravn wrote:
| Sounds really interesting. Do you have samples, benchmarks or
| other resources you can share?
| bob1029 wrote:
| Out of everything in the new 5.0 release, I am looking forward
| most to the non-generic TaskCompletionSource. This is a primitive
| that has been bothering me for some time WRT tasks that return
| nothing. I've been resorting to using bool as the generic type
| argument and discarding the value in these cases.
|
| Also, C# 9.0 is really cool. Will be abusing the new pattern
| matching stuff once we get a chance to upgrade. Looking like
| 3.1=>5.0 is going to be a non-event for us based on the current
| migration guides.
| eropple wrote:
| I'm most excited for records and `with`. This is a feature in
| C# I've been wanting for _years_ and will really help make the
| use of immutable data throughout a system easier with a ton,
| and I mean a ton, less boilerplate.
| SparksAndQuarks wrote:
| Shame 'with' will not apply to structs - all the ingredients
| are already there. Through it might be in the plan for some
| future release.
| eropple wrote:
| As I understand it, making structs implement the record
| stuff would potentially be...weird. But you're right, it'd
| be nice.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| > I've been resorting to using bool as the generic type
| argument and discarding the value in these cases.
|
| After seeing other libraries do so, I've fallen into the habit
| of using a singleton 'Unit' or 'Empty' Type. (This technically
| also falls in line with the .NET conventions of DbNull.Value
| and Missing.Value)
|
| Actually, typing that out, I wonder if we all should have been
| using Missing.Value all along? :)
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Pity that `void` is so special in .net, instead of being a
| proper unit type (would have avoided the Func/Action
| duplication as well)
| recursive wrote:
| DBNull is my least favorite part of any version of any .net
| thing I've ever seen. I hate it with a fiery passion. It
| forces otherwise sensibly typed variables to be `object`,
| among a host of other sins.
| GordonS wrote:
| > I am looking forward most to the non-generic
| TaskCompletionSource
|
| That has always seemed like a strange omission, but I can't say
| it's really caused me distress :)
|
| Personally, I'm looking forward to the `half` type, the extra
| GC diagnostic info, improved app trimming, improved ASN and
| certificate handling, and of course the improved performance
| and increased reach of Span. But I think most of all, I'm
| looking forward to a long term plan and no more .NET
| Standard/Core mismatch.
| lostmsu wrote:
| The half type is going to be obsolete instantly. There are
| quite a few other new floating types becoming popular
| recently: bfloat16, TF32, etc
|
| I wish they made C# support a notion of generic alrgebras.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I was kinda looking at migrating my project over to .NET
| Core/.NET 5 lately... turns out that despite bringing over
| Windows Forms and WPF support, Microsoft refuses to port
| System.Speech for text-to-speech and speech recognition.
|
| Turns out the reason why is that since the Speech team moved
| under Azure, the Speech team considers System.Speech "replaced"
| by Azure's cloud-based speech services. Kinda takes any idea I
| had of moving to Microsoft's modern platform off the table for
| me, because local-only functionality is a must-have in my book.
| And there's no reason my Windows machine shouldn't be able to do
| the same local-based speech capability PCs have had for the past
| couple decades without the cloud.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| Isn't there a WinRT API that you can use from .net 5?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Plausible, though https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/uwp/api/windows.media.speec... looks significantly
| simplified from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/dotnet/api/system.speech.sy...
|
| I'm not confident all the same functionality I've tapped into
| can be replicated with this.
| jahewson wrote:
| It's possible that that System.Speech is using technology and
| patents licensed to Microsoft for use in Windows but not
| something they can sub-license.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| no third party libraries that fit the bill?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I investigated a little bit, but most of the speech libraries
| on NuGet are either wrappers for Google/Microsoft/Amazon/IBM
| cloud services, or are dependent on System.Speech anyways.
|
| It's plausible if I really wanted to, I could run a separate
| service/application from some non-.NET-based alternative, but
| the integration is likely to be a lot messier. Right now, I'm
| not sure .NET 5 offers a compelling reason to drop .NET
| Framework, which Microsoft will presumably continue to
| support for at least the next decade.
|
| Microsoft still lacks a cross-platform desktop UI framework,
| they have no project template in Visual Studio that would let
| you write a service that can run as a service on both Windows
| and Linux, and .NET 5 is missing lots of Windows integration
| functionality like System.Speech as well. I'd really like to
| make my project both run as a service, and run cross-
| platform, but there doesn't appear to be a good path to do
| either one with .NET 5 yet, and it'd likely take substantial
| rewriting just to get my project to .NET 5 on Windows.
| ripley12 wrote:
| > they have no project template in Visual Studio that would
| let you write a service that can run as a service on both
| Windows and Linux
|
| I have lots of complaints about the state of the .NET
| ecosystem, but thankfully this one is pretty easy IMO.
| Basically just use the `dotnet new worker` .NET Core
| template; it scaffolds a project using the ASP.NET Core
| generic host, which can easily (a NuGet package and 1 line
| of code) be adapted to run as either a Windows Service or a
| systemd service on Linux.
|
| https://www.hanselman.com/blog/dotnetNewWorkerWindowsServic
| e... https://www.reillywood.com/blog/dotnet-linux
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It might be somewhat simple, but their paid Visual Studio
| IDE demonstrates no way to get there, and it probably
| should. The only project types tagged as services are
| .NET Framework templates to make a Windows service.
|
| I have to apparently read blog posts about how to get
| there myself with .NET Core. Suffice to say, Microsoft's
| move to the open source/Linux mindset may have come at
| the cost of being similarly confusing to get started
| with.
|
| Note that your blogs happily tell me to add a single
| NuGet package for Windows or Linux, but doesn't bother to
| tell me how to assemble a project that will work on both.
| csharptwdec19 wrote:
| > Microsoft refuses to port System.Speech for text-to-speech
| and speech recognition.
|
| I think it's more complicated than just 'porting'... Something
| tells me that System.Speech is a nice wrapper for a very
| windows specific API. Similar to how Microsoft isn't bringing
| over WCF Hosting (Because too many parts of it are dependent on
| Windows itself.)
|
| Now, ideally, it would be nice if Microsoft would expose the
| existing System.Speech source code, so that somebody could
| begin the efforts of making it into an OSS Project that could
| eventually _become_ multiplatform.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Windows Forms and WPF are also both Windows API wrappers, and
| they've been brought over for when you are targeting Windows-
| based platforms.
|
| System.Speech is no longer available on Windows in .NET 5,
| even if you're using Windows Forms or WPF, which are Windows-
| only frameworks.
|
| In theory, if Microsoft was at least holding up compatibility
| for such things on Windows, I could move my target towards
| .NET Core/.NET 5, then gradually replace Windows-specific
| code with cross-platform code. But as per usual, I'm getting
| the impression it'd be easier to start over than migrate.
|
| I agree it'd be really nice if they open sourced the code
| necessary to look at porting System.Speech, but I imagine
| it'd be unpleasant as a business decision: It'd erode their
| ability to bill people for the Azure "replacement".
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Being windows dependent shouldn't prevent offering
| System.Speech as a library that targets only windows.
| worble wrote:
| .NET Core/Standard already has windows specific API's, and
| .NET 5 is going to make them safer to use going forward with
| static analysis[0], so I doubt the Windows specificness is
| the reason why.
|
| 0: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/the-future-of-net-
| stan...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Can someone please explain what .NET framework is? Everytime I
| come across it, it seems like a mysterious microsoft thing and
| Wikipedia's explanation is even more confusing:
|
| > .NET Framework (pronounced as "dot net") is a software
| framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft
| Windows. It includes a large class library called Framework Class
| Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each
| language can use code written in other languages) across several
| programming languages.
|
| What is .NET framework _really_?
|
| Elsewhere, it is described as "A framework to build applications
| in Windows", but I thought that's what the Windows API helps
| with.
|
| Any help with clarification would be great, thank you.
| wenc wrote:
| A really handwavy description would be that it's kinda like a
| "runtime".
|
| It's very roughly analogous to the Java Runtime Environment
| (JRE). .NET binaries are very roughly like JAR files.
|
| (I realize the analogy is rough, but I think it would connect
| with folks who've never worked with a Microsoft stack)
| pizza234 wrote:
| I suppose that it's very similar in spirit as Java, with the
| difference that Microsoft presented in a more encompassing way
| (assuming that the definition of "software framework" was given
| by MS).
|
| Often in fact Java is described as a language, while, at a
| minimum, a Java distribution includes the JVM and the standard
| library.
|
| Describing as a software framework is therefore (in this sense)
| more exact, as the .NET framework includes the CLR and its
| standard library (and possibly, other components).
|
| The difference with the Windows API is that they are lower
| level. The simplest possible component one may think of is
| probably LINQ - querying functionalities are intuitively higher
| level than system APIs.
| Inception wrote:
| This is a pretty good explanation video about the .NET
| ecosystem in general:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEfBfBQq7EE
| josteink wrote:
| > What is .NET framework really?
|
| At its core: It's what Microsoft made to compete with Java back
| in 2002.
|
| It's a development platform, with associated tooling, compilers
| and a runtime. It has a common standard-library independent of
| language used by the developer (which aids cross-language
| interop), but realistically speaking most people just use C#.
|
| You can use it to create network services, console
| applications, web assembly programs or desktop GUI
| applications. It's quite versatile.
|
| And .NET 5 will seemingly be the first version to officially
| supersede the previously Windows-only ".Net Framework" with a
| modern, open-source, cross-platform version instead.
|
| As a Linux desktop-user, I'm loving it.
| scruple wrote:
| Are you building and/or using any .NET desktop GUI
| applications _on_ linux? I'd love to poke around some open-
| source projects to see how these are being made today.
| ablekh wrote:
| Has anyone here used (or are familiar with relevant cases of
| using) .NET for developing startup products, including MVPs? With
| some exceptions, I'm seeing .NET as predominantly an enterprise-
| focused technology. Strategizing about development of my MVP (B2B
| enterprise platform), as a CTO, I'm torn between a) Python and
| its great ecosystem (I plan to use FastAPI instead of more
| traditional Flask and Django), b) C# and .NET ecosystem and - to
| a lesser degree, for the reasons explained below - c) Julia and
| its emerging ecosystem.
|
| As much as I'm excited about Julia, I think that both the
| language and the ecosystem have not yet reached enough maturity
| and critical mass of developers as well as comprehensive and
| stable general-purpose libraries and tools to be a safe choice
| for a startup, which is already a highly risky venture. I have to
| reduce risks, not add ones.
|
| Between Python and .NET ecosystems, I'm more familiar with the
| former and, under equal conditions, would choose it over .NET.
| Additional argument in favor of this decision is that most of
| advanced ML/AI development is focused on Python high-level
| interfaces (and ML/AI is certainly a significant part of my
| future platform's value proposition). However, based on my
| research and recent .NET experience, I recognize its advantages
| versus the Python stack in some areas, including native type
| system support (though _pydantic_ might be good enough for the
| Python stack; plus, it is used by FastAPI), rich set of native
| APIs, much better performance, much better support for domain-
| driven design (DDD), WebAssembly support, and, finally, much
| better support for developing multi-tenant applications. The last
| item is especially important in my case, since multi-tenancy and
| other relevant features (e.g., auditability) are strict
| requirements and Python ecosystem pales in comparison with .NET
| in this regard (the only decent project that I ran across is
| _django-tenants_ , but a) it would force me to use Django and b)
| it only supports PostgreSQL schema-based multi-tenancy approach).
|
| Would love to hear your opinions and thoughts on the above. Thank
| you in advance!
| retendo wrote:
| I'm using .NET Core/F# for the backend of my bootstrapped
| "startup". I mostly have an iOS dev background so take my
| experiences with a grain of salt.
|
| So far everything has gone pretty smooth. ASP.NET Core is
| running under the hood which seems to be pretty mature. F# and
| the libraries that I work with all provide a functional
| development experience. I interface with a Postgres database,
| so there's libraries for that as well.
|
| You mentioned Domain-Driven Design. I would recommend reading
| Scott Wlaschins book Domain Modeling Made Functional [1].
|
| If you are interested in playing around with F#, a quick way to
| start would be to try SAFE stack [2].
|
| From what I have read during the last couple of months, MS
| seems to be interested in pushing F# as one of their go-to
| languages for machine learning. At least they have an F#
| example online [3], which can not be said for most other areas
| where F# would also be a good fit in my opinion.
|
| [1] https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/books/ [2] https://safe-
| stack.github.io [3]
| https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/machinelearning-ai/ml-dotn...
| ablekh wrote:
| Much appreciate your feedback and advice. I was considering
| using F# instead C# for my potential .NET-based solution. But
| not because of Microsoft's ML push for F# (which seems to be
| just a move to achieve feature parity with C# within ML.NET
| framework, which, by the way, is not as comprehensive as
| relevant Python ecosystem), but rather because of F#'s meta-
| programming features. However, the advantages of F# still do
| not overweight its IMO two main disadvantages: a much more
| limited (vs. C#) pool of available developers and limited
| support by tools beyond Microsoft ecosystem (e.g., by
| JetBrains products).
| atraac wrote:
| I worked for two consultancies that basically created apps for
| multiple startups and we used .NET Core in almost all projects.
| I don't really have comparison because besides simple, personal
| Django projects I never had much experience with Python but I
| find .NET Core actually enjoyable(I come from Android
| Java/Kotlin world). I don't like the community which is, mostly
| still stuck in the enterprise(though that's changing alowly)
| and often feels like an MS cult, but otherwise, there's nothing
| bad I could really say about .NET. Especially when paired with
| Azure ecosystem, it's really easy do develop and deploy, it's
| really fast, easy to work with thanks to Entity Framework and
| stuff like LINQ, there's a lot of choice in libraries. Some are
| still stuck in .NET Framework(Windows) world, but most of
| Nugets already implement at least netstandard2.0 which allows
| you to use them with Core. In overall, especially now with
| Blazor becoming a thing, I'd recommend at least trying it out.
| ablekh wrote:
| I appreciate your prompt feedback with interesting details.
| Re: Blazor - while it's definitely a promising technology,
| I'm not sure how suitable it is for building SPAs. One
| potential issue that I can see is quite limited (and IMO very
| expensive, e.g.:
| https://www.syncfusion.com/sales/products/blazor) UI
| components ecosystem, when compared to the React/Vue/Angular
| one (I plan on using Vue).
| sunnyP wrote:
| You might qualify for the Syncfusion Community License:
| https://www.syncfusion.com/products/communitylicense
|
| Radzen also has a component library available:
| https://blazor.radzen.com/
|
| https://abp.io/ recently added Blazor to their framework
| that you might want to check out.
| cutler wrote:
| I don't quite get the hype around Blazor. Great idea but the
| implementation is a non-starter considering it has to send a
| whole runtime over the wire.
| bob1029 wrote:
| We use it in server-side mode (no WASM assembly to
| deliver). SSB is incredible for apps where you are
| expecting a well-bounded number of concurrent users.
|
| We use it for internal business dashboards and devops
| management tools. The ability to inject & use existing .NET
| services is pretty incredible in terms of productivity. We
| now maintain a monorepository because of this reuse
| potential.
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/aspnet/core/blazor/hosting-...
| GordonS wrote:
| > Has anyone here used (or are familiar with relevant cases of
| using) .NET for developing startup products, including MVPs?
|
| Yes, I have. I've been programming with C# since it was first
| released, so we're very well acquainted, and I can build MVPs
| quickly. As always though, it depends what you are used to.
|
| > I'm seeing .NET as predominantly an enterprise-focused
| technology
|
| I didn't see it as any more enterprise-focused than Java, andid
| say less so since dotnet core brought multi-platform support.
| ablekh wrote:
| Thank you for your feedback. When I said _" predominantly an
| enterprise-focused technology"_, I meant overall popularity
| for building in-house enterprise products versus developing
| startup products. Anyway, should I decide to use .NET, I
| would most likely use a high-quality boilerplate solution as
| a foundation. Specifically, I'm a big fan of (and have
| already played with) ASP.NET Boilerplate and its next-gen
| version called ABP Framework. They also have relevant
| attractive commercial versions.
| bargl wrote:
| I've worked at a startup that did this.
|
| I don't know if this was the program we used, but you can get a
| LOT of free stuff from Microsoft as a startup.
| https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/startups/
|
| >Between Python and .NET ecosystems, I'm more familiar with the
| former and, under equal conditions, would choose it over .NET.
|
| I think one thing you need to do when creating a startup is, go
| with what you know (as you said). You want to decrease the risk
| that you're product is going to be blocked by encountering an
| edge case in a framework/language you don't know and you get
| stuck there for a long time. I am way more familiar with .NET
| than Python, but I use Python in my spare time and on side
| projects to build up those muscles.
|
| If you're doing a startup and you want to go .NET, I don't
| think there's anything holding you back anymore. It's open
| source now, runs on Linux, and you don't have to pay a dime to
| develop with it. Microsoft will get you in that, it's WAY
| easier to pay a little bit to get Visual Studio Enterprise and
| to then hook that into Azure and all of a sudden you're paying
| them a ton of money. Yes, that's their master plan. But, no one
| is making you do that.
|
| Where to stay away from .NET core: Lambdas. The startup time
| for Lambdas just isn't where it is for other languages, when I
| last looked at this. If someone has newer data to prove me
| wrong I'll freaking LOVE YOU FOREVER!
|
| Anyway, depending on what and how you're building your startup,
| .NET maybe a great pick for you depending on your background. I
| wouldn't force myself to pick up a new ecosystem and do a
| startup if I was focused on delivering a product I wanted to
| deliver and not learning something new and cool.
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