These are the software packages (and relevant version numbers) used to write this book and test the source code:

• Visual Studio 2022 Community edition 17.8.1 with the optional ASP.NET and web development workload (it can be selected from the Workloads section within the Visual Studio installer app)
• Microsoft .NET 8 SDK 8.0.100
• TypeScript 5.2
• NuGet package manager 6.8.0
• Node.js 20.10.0
• Angular 17.0.3

We strongly suggest using the same version used within this book, or newer, but at your own risk! Jokes aside, if you prefer to use a different version, that’s perfectly fine, as long as you are aware that, in that case, you may need to make some manual changes and adjustments to the source code.

The code files for this book can be found here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/ASP.NET-Core-8-and-Angular.

From the perspective of a fully functional web-based application, we can say that the web API interface provided with the ASP.NET framework is a programmatic set of server-side handlers used by the server to expose a number of hooks and/or endpoints to a defined request-response message system. This is typically expressed in structured markup languages (XML), language-independent data formats (JSON), or query languages for APIs (GraphQL). As we’ve already said, this is achieved by exposing application programming interfaces (APIs) through HTTP and/or HTTPS protocols via a publicly available web server such as IIS, Node.js, Apache, or NGINX.

Similarly, Angular can be described as a modern, feature-rich, client-side framework that pushes the HTML and ECMAScript’s most advanced features, along with the modern browser’s capabilities, to their full extent by binding the input and/or output parts of an HTML web page into a flexible, reusable...

To summarize what has happened in the ASP.NET world within the last decade is not an easy task; in short, we can say that we’ve undoubtedly witnessed the most important series of changes in .NET Framework since the year it came to life. This was a revolution that changed the whole Microsoft approach to software development in almost every way. To properly understand what happened in those years, it would be useful to identify some distinctive key frames within a slow, yet constant, journey that allowed a company known (and somewhat loathed) for its proprietary software, licenses, and patents to become a driving force for open source development worldwide.

The first relevant step, at least in my humble opinion, was taken on April 3, 2014, at the annual Microsoft Build conference, which took place at the Moscone Center (West) in San Francisco. It was there, during a memorable keynote speech, that Anders Hejlsberg – father of Delphi and lead...

If following in the footsteps of Microsoft and the .NET Foundation in recent years has not been an easy task, things were not going to get any better when we turned our eyes to the client-side web framework known as Angular. To understand what happened there, we have to go back 10 years to when JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and MooTools were dominating the client-side scene; the first client-side frameworks, such as Dojo, Backbone.js, and Knockout.js, were struggling to gain popularity and reach wide adoption; and stuff such as React and Vue.js didn’t even exist.

As we have seen, both frameworks have gone through many intense years of changes. This led to a whole refoundation of their core and, right after that, a constant strain to get back on top – or at least not lose ground against most modern frameworks that came out after their now-departed golden age. These frameworks are eager to dominate the development scene: Python, Go, and Rust for the server-side part, and React, Vue.js, and Ember.js for the client-side part, not to mention the Node.js and Express ecosystem, and most of the old competitors from the 1990s and 2000s, such as Java, Ruby, and PHP, which are still alive and kicking.

That said, here’s a list of good reasons for picking ASP.NET Core in 2024:

• Performance: The new .NET web stack is considerably fast, especially since .NET Core 3.1, with continuous improvements up to .NET 8.
• Integration: It supports most, if not all, modern client-side frameworks,...

Before moving on, let’s do a quick recap of what we just talked about in this chapter.

We briefly described our platforms of choice – ASP.NET Core and Angular – and acknowledged their combined potential in the process of building a modern web application. We spent some valuable time recalling what’s happened in these last few years and summarizing the efforts of both development teams to reboot and improve their respective frameworks. These recaps were very useful to enumerate and understand the main reasons why we’re still using them over their ever-growing competitors.

In the next chapter, we will deal with the typical challenges of a full stack developer: define our goals, acquire the proper mindset, set up the environment, and create our first ASP.NET and Angular projects.

For further information, we recommend the following topics: ASP.NET Core, .NET Core, .NET 8, Angular, Angular 17, tree-shaking, Angular Ivy, tsconfig.json, Roslyn, CoreCLR, RyuJIT, NuGet, npm, ECMAScript 6, JavaScript, TypeScript, webpack, SystemJS, RxJS, cache-control, HTTP headers, .NET middleware, Angular Universal, server-side rendering (SSR), ahead-of-time (AOT) compiler, service workers, web manifest files, and tsconfig.json.

• ASP.NET 5 is dead – Introducing ASP.NET Core 1.0 and .NET Core 1.0: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ASPNET5IsDeadIntroducingASPNETCore10AndNETCore10.aspx
• An Update on ASP.NET Core and .NET Core: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/webdev/2016/02/01/an-update-on-asp-net-core-and-net-core/
• ASP.NET Core 1.1.0 release notes: https://github.com/aspnet/AspNetCore/releases/1.1.0
• ASP.NET Core 1.1.0 Commits list: https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/1.1/1.1-commits.md
• ASP.NET Core 2.1.0 release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/aspnet/core/release-notes/aspnetcore-2.1
• ASP.NET Core 2.1.0 Commits list: https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/2.1/2.1.0-commit.md
• ASP.NET Core 2.2.0 release notes: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/aspnet/core/release-notes/aspnetcore-2.2
• ASP.NET Core 2.2.0 Commits list: https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/2.2/2.2.0/2.2.0-commits.md
...