Q&A

Q&A: ASP.NET Core Beyond the Basics

• By David Ramel
• 04/27/2022

There are a lot of "getting started" talks about ASP.NET Core out there, but they won't take you very far in the real world. What if you already know what the Startup class does, how configuration is handled and what Kestrel is?

Well then, do we have an expert for you!

Based in Sweden, Chris Klug is an 11-time MVP in Developer Technologies and sought-after tech event presenter, along with being a solution architect and developer at Active Solution. He's going to be diving into the higher-level ASP.NET Core stuff in an upcoming presentation at the Visual Studio Live! conference set for June 13-17 in Austin, Texas.

His June 16 presentation, ASP.NET Core Beyond the Basics, will cram multiple demos into a short amount of time in examining complex areas of ASP.NET Core, thus skipping typical introductions to ASP.NET Core and "this template includes ..." types of discussions.

Attendees are promised to:

• Learn there is much more to ASP.NET Core than they teach at ASP.NET Core 101
• See some really interesting features of ASP.NET Core that generally aren't shown
• Realize that with a good understanding of the framework, you can build stuff you didn't think was possible

To give you a taste of what's on tap, we caught up with Chris for a quick Q&A:

VisualStudioMagazine: In going beyond the basics, what are some of the advanced/complex topics you will cover in your presentation?
Klug: I'm actually going to be looking at a few different topics. For example, I will show how to use some ASP.NET Core extension points to enable content negotiation using the Accept header. I will also do a fun little deep dive into how you can add features to any ASP.NET Core application deployed to your server, by "simply" utilizing a few tricks built into the framework. Basically showing how Application Insights can be "injected" into your application by simply ticking a checkbox in Azure.

What's the biggest hurdle ASP.NET Core developers have to overcome as they embark on projects beyond the basic web site types of projects?
Well, people tend to look at the intro courses, and the "Getting started"-kind of talks. And this is fine if you just need the basics. However, when you start digging deeper, and reading the documentation, you realize that there are a lot of features in there that you can use to your advantage.

But I think the problem is really around finding out that something is available. Once you know that, you can easily find more information in the docs, or on-line. But before you know what to look for, it is hard.

You will discuss some really interesting features of ASP.NET Core that generally aren't shown. What's one?
Well, it's just the amount of extensions points that are available in there. And since there are often very generic, they allow you to take advantage of them in whatever way you need. For example, the ability to add an attribute implementing the IActionConstraint interface. This allows you to filter the use of an action based on a context in a very simple way. But it still offers so many possibilities.

A complete understanding of the framework can help developers build things they didn't think was possible. What's an example of that?
By understanding the IActionConstraint interface, as well as a few supporting base classes and interfaces, I am able to add content negotiation using the Accept header in a fairly easy way. A feature that I find to be missing in the framework, and that could be hindering me. But now, I have it, and can use it in my project.