Microsoft Blazor

Blazor, Microsoft’s experimental framework that brings C# into the browser, is the missing piece in the C# puzzle. Today, a C# programmer can write desktop, server-side Web, cloud, phone, tablet, watch, TV and IoT applications. Blazor completes the puzzle, allowing a C# developer to share code and business logic right into the user’s browser. This is a powerful ability and a gigantic productivity improvement for C# developers.

It holds the promise of modern single-page applications, combined with the ability to use C# and its vast base-class library. Blazor takes C# development to a new level. It’s the final piece necessary to make the language a full-stack development tool. It will have all the power of the popular JavaScript frameworks, but based on the familiar languages, APIs and tooling of the Microsoft .NET Framework.

If you come from a traditional Microsoft background and are familiar with ASP.NET Web Forms or Model-View-Controller (MVC), getting up to speed on Blazor is surprisingly easy, especially when compared to the mountain a Microsoft developer must climb to gain the equivalent knowledge in a JavaScript framework such as Angular or React.

It’s important to understand that Blazor runs completely inside the browser. Once a Blazor app is compiled, it’s essentially a set of files that gets loaded into the browser and runs. Unlike traditional ASP.NET applications, there’s no need for anything special on the back end to serve it. A Blazor site can be served by any Web server on any platform. As for clients, any browser that supports the WebAssembly standard supports Blazor. That includes all the major browsers shipping today.

When running in the browser, an application isn’t really all that useful without access to external data and services. Just like standard JavaScript single-page applications, Blazor apps access Web services using HTTP REST APIs. Those APIs can be created using Microsoft tools, such as Web API, or any technology that can present an HTTP REST endpoint. In this article, I’m going to demonstrate the ability of a Blazor app to call freely available Web services on the Web.