ASP.NET Core · Module 1 · Lesson 00 / 04

What is ASP.NET Core?

Understand what a web framework actually does.

A familiar situation

When you open a web page, the browser sends an HTTP request to a server. The server examines the request and sends a response. A framework provides tools for handling this work without starting from scratch.

Three names you must distinguish

C# is the language. .NET is the developer platform. ASP.NET Core is the web framework built on .NET. It can serve HTML pages, JSON APIs, and interactive applications.

Your first mental model

Browser → HTTP request → ASP.NET Core application → HTTP response → Browser

For example, visiting /hello may return the sentence Hello from my server!.

Think and answer

  1. Is ASP.NET Core a language or a framework?
  2. What is the job of a browser?
  3. What is an HTTP response?
Check your answers

1. Framework. 2. Requests resources and displays responses. 3. A message sent back by the server, including status, headers and often content.