Libraries, Assemblies, Packages, and NuGet
Christian Nagel · 2018
This chapter explains the differences between dynamic link libraries (DLLs), assemblies, and NuGet packages. NuGet packages can be created easily by using the .NET Core CLI tools and with Visual Studio 2017. The chapter details assemblies and NuGet packages, shows how to share code using .NET Standard libraries, and also describes differences with Windows Runtime components. The .NET Standard defines an API set that is implemented from different .NET platforms. Some libraries like Entity Framework switched to NuGet to allow for faster updates than the .NET Framework offered. The chapter describes how a .NET Standard library can be used from .NET Core and the .NET Framework, and how types come from different libraries, such as mscorlib and System.Runtime. Shared projects give an alternative to a library to share the code but include the code with the project that references the shared project.