Intro to .NET Standard - What it is, when to use it, and how it is different than the .NET Framework

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With Visual Studio 2017, Microsoft introduced a few new flavors of familiar project types. For example, the Class Library project type now has a .NET Framework version (the standard one we are used to), a .NET Core version, a Portable version, and a .NET Standard version. The .NET Standard version has been tripping people up recently, so I decided to do a video explaining what it is, how to use it, and how it is different from the other project types.

This is mostly an informational video without a ton of demo. I show off some of the pitfalls and how to resolve them, but beyond that I mostly just explain the .NET Standard project type.

The website I showed off in the video is no longer active.

0:00 - intro
0:28 - class library types
1:36 - portable class library
2:41 - standard library
4:49 - compatibility table
7:34 - Versioning rules explained
9:47 - when to choose Standard library
11:09 - setting up Standard library: create and configure
15:44 - using Standard library in a project
18:08 - comparability issues to watch out for
26:42 - summary

[AlbertoFranciscoMatambo]

You are a very good teacher; you have such a methodology of teaching that is very practical and that facilitates learning, especially for those who are starting in the programming world. Starting a project from the beginning to the end applying current principles and technologies makes it very easy to understand what you teach. My sincere congratulations for your time and job and on sharing it, please continue teaching us, we thank you very much.

[RalfsBalodis]

0:00 - intro
0:28 - class library types
1:36 - portable class library
2:41 - standard library
4:49 - compatibility table
7:34 - Versioning rules explained
9:47 - when to choose Standard library
11:09 - setting up Standard library: create and configure
15:44 - using Standard library in a project
18:08 - comparability issues to watch out for
26:42 - summary

[asyncawake]

I appreciate the introduction: For beginners the "similar sounding/looking" .net framework and .net standard options (when you create a new project) can a bit confusing and you're intro helps to clear that up a good deal :)

[TP_Raks]

Hey Tim, Sending love and appreciation all the way from South Africa ♥️🙌🏾

[onyebuchiboss]

Thanks Tim, i just got a good grasp about the .Net framework and standards.

[malik]

Thax for this amazing video
it helps me a lot to understand the basic difference among the different class library projects

[warriorgirl]

Thank you for your videos. Really helps me for college and work. Are you using VS Community, Professional or Enterprise? I noticed that my Community Version doesn´t have all options you are showing in many of your videos.

[nishan]

Thanks a lot for the clear presentation. This helped me a lot.

[rhyaam]

Your videos are excellent. Do you have any examples of wiring up .Net Core micro services? For example, a Currency Exchange and Currency Conversion Micro Service

[eugeneshcherbo]

Hey, Tim. Great explanation! Thanks for that! Do you know probably where I can read or watch about how all of this stuff works under the hood? I mean what happens when we compile a .Net Standard library and how actually the method from the library is resolved by runtime. I'm too curious about this. Thanks!

[imadabab]

Excellent tutorial as usual. Thanks a lot.

[Disneyapocolapse]

Thanks for the Vid. was looking for a great explanation

[Gruggo]

Fantastic video, really great explanation of this.

[skyBlue_]

I'm currently working on a project in WinForms and you said on other video that we could use .net standard for our code & also use .net framework for UI so that when the time comes, we could easily migrate to .net core right?

[RoughSubset]

Thanks for the intro to .net standard. I do have a question though, I'm building an asp .net core app with ef core but I need access to the SqlFileStream API that is only available in the full .net framework. Would using a .net standard library solve the issue for me. I imagine that the .net standard library would act as a middle man and allow the core app to access full .net APIs through the standard library?

[sharathcv]

Thank you so much for this video.

Can we conclude the following: There is the .net standard and then the .net standard class library (that we create). These are two different things. One is a specification and other is a class library that we may want to create that targets. There is no implementation called .net Standard, or can we say that .net standard library is the framework based on .net standard, and both .net core and .net framework uses .net standard library? Please let me know.

When I write it down its all clear, but when I think of it again, it gets confusing :)

[sandeepbondugula]

Hi Tim, may be I’m still confused 🤷‍♂️. If they have .Net Framework (which runs only on Windows) and .Net Core which is a cross platform framework (which runs on Windows, Linux and MAC) then why would we need .Net Standard ?

[FinkPatricio]

So with the .Net Standard i can do a WPF Desktop App that will run in Windows MacOS and Linux?

[fadinum]

its good time to start learn c# beutiful language and easy to learn

[jamie-leejohns]

Is .NET Standard stabler now with the release of 2.0? 2.0 and 2.1 being a year apart seems a sign that development is slowing down