.NET Core

I am starting to become a full-stack developer, by choosing and learning .NET Core for API Development, Angular CLI / React for UI Development, MongoDB for database, as it a NoSQL DB and Flutter / React Native for Mobile App Development. Using Postman, Markdown and Visual Studio Code for development.

Finding the most effective dev stack for a solo developer. Over the past year, I've been looking at many tech stacks that would be 'best' for me, as a solo, indie, developer to deliver a desktop app (Windows & Mac) plus mobile - iOS mainly. Initially, Xamarin started to stand-out. Using .NET Core as the run-time, Xamarin as the native API provider and Xamarin Forms for the UI seemed to solve all issues. But, the cracks soon started to appear. Xamarin Forms is mobile only; the Windows incarnation is different. There is no Mac UI solution (you have to code it natively in Mac OS Storyboard. I was also worried how Xamarin Forms , if I was to use it, was going to cope, in future, with Apple's new SwiftUI and Google's new Fuchsia.

This plethora of techs for the UI-layer made me reach for the safer waters of using Web-techs for the UI. Lovely! Consistency everywhere (well, mostly). But that consistency evaporates when platform issues are addressed. There are so many web frameworks!

But, I made a simple decision. It's just me...I am clever, but there is no army of coders here. And I have big plans for a business app. How could just 1 developer go-on to deploy a decent app to Windows, iPhone, iPad & Mac OS? I remembered earlier days when I've used Microsoft's ASP.NET to scaffold - generate - loads of Code for a web-app that I needed for several charities that I worked with. What 'generators' exist that do a lot of the platform-specific rubbish, allow the necessary customisation of such platform integration and provide a decent UI?

I've placed my colours to the Quasar Framework mast. Oh dear, that means Electron desktop apps doesn't it? Well, Ive had enough of loads of Developers saying that "the menus won't look native" or "it uses too much RAM" and so on. I've been using non-native UI-wrapped apps for ages - the date picker in Outlook on iOS is way better than the native date-picker and I'd been using it for years without getting hot under the collar about it. Developers do get so hung-up on things that busy Users hardly notice; don't you think?. As to the RAM usage issue; that's a bit true. But Users only really notice when an app uses so much RAM that the machine starts to page-out. Electron contributes towards that horizon but does not cause it. My Users will be business-users after all. Somewhat decent machines.

Looking forward to all that lovely Vue.js around my TypeScript and all those really, really, b e a u t I f u l UI controls of Quasar Framework . Still not sure that 1 dev can deliver all that... but I'm up for trying...

Visual Studio Git GitLab MariaDB NGINX Linux

Visual Studio 2019 is increasing my productivity incredibly when I building MVC WebAPI and Web project. GitLab is essential tools for me. Issue boards are great as well as Source code safe in GitLab. The most amazing thing is Microsoft's new strategy on .NET enviroment for me. I love .NET Core 's cross platform support. I can deploy my projects on Linux via NGINX and .NET Core runtime or self host options. MariaDB become our first choose database option because of its great talents.

Secure Membership Web API backed by SQL Server. This is the backing API to store additional profile and complex membership metadata outside of an Azure AD B2C provider. The front-end using the Azure AD B2C to allow 3rd party trusted identity providers to authenticate. This API provides a way to add and manage more complex permission structures than can easily be maintained in Azure AD.

We have .Net developers and an Azure infrastructure environment using server-less functions, logic apps and SaaS where ever possible. For this service I opted to keep it as a classic WebAPI project and deployed to AppService.

• Trusted Authentication Provider: @AzureActiveDirectoryB2C
• Frameworks: @{.NET Core}|tool:6403|
• Language: @{C#}|tool:1015| , @{Microsoft SQL Server}|tool:1027| , @{JavaScript}|tool:1209|
• IDEs: @{Visual Studio Code}|tool:4202| , @{Visual Studio}|tool:1451|
• Libraries: @{jQuery}|tool:1021| @EntityFramework, @AutoMapper, @FeatureToggle , @Swashbuckle
• Database: @SqlAzure
• Source Control: @{Git}|tool:1046|
• Build and Release Pipelines: @{Azure DevOps}|tool:4313|
• Test tools: @{Postman}|tool:1336| , @{Newman}|tool:3766|
• Test framework: @nUnit, @moq
• Infrastructure: @AzureAppService, @AzureAPIManagement

I use .NET Core because it provides more easy to use/test/deploy model then tradition framework. Mostly this is coming from improved build tooling. Also, run-time improvements made by .NET team mostly in .NET Core, and for fresh projects there no point to use full .NET, given that almost any code written for .NET Core would run anywhere in Windows/Linux/Mac