.NET Standard 2.0 vs. .NET Framework 4.6.1 about standard HOT 7 CLOSED

@terrajobst For the record the correct link is https://github.com/dotnet/standard/blob/release/2.0.0/docs/netstandard-20/README.md#net-framework-461-supporting-net-standard-20
i.e. on master branch the page has been wipe out -> 404 page not found

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This section should answer the first part of your question:

https://github.com/dotnet/standard/blob/release/2.0.0/docs/netstandard-20/README.md#net-framework-461-supporting-net-standard-20

Also, why is updating .NET Framework such a big issue?

.NET Framework is a machine wide installation. When you don't own the machine, you cannot necessarily and install a new version of the .NET Framework. Consider IT departments in larger companies, or hosted scenarios (e.g. Azure).

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What will happen when a .NET Standard 2.0-targeted program runs on .NET Framework 4.6.1 which doesn't have all the capabilities? Will it crash?

Yes, the program will throw a MissingMemberException, if you call one of the ~40 members that aren't available there. If that's unhandled, the program will crash.

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Note that we don't expect those members to be heavily used or impactful compared to the thousands that are there. We're looking to find a good solution to ensure people don't hit those problems.

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Ah, so it's basically ".NET Framework 4.6.1 supports .NET Standard 2.0 but (intentionally/knowingly) violates this promise in these few members", could I say that? Not that I had any problem with that, I just like to know.

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Yes, that's right. Wish we had a time machine but you could say that 4.6.1 has an extremely small setown of known issues.

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@ygoe it's common for many enterprises to update .net very slowly, sometimes due to incompatibilities with other software (example: if you have Exchange installed, you cannot install .NET 4.6.2). until very recently even 4.6 did not have a lot of traction across some industries.

having net461 support netstandard2.0 therefore gets netstandard2.0 to wide availability years earlier. i think it would be worth the back-compat break that was originally proposed too, but either way it's still a good move.

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