I think MVC packages should become additional NuGet packages too. MVC is great, but unlike vanilla ASP.NET Core it is extremely opinionated how a we application should be laid out which is really not everyone's cup of tea, let alone even fits with the paradigm of all .NET languages. I really believe the shared ASP.NET Core framework deserves to be MVC free or have a second MVC free version of it. What do you think?

What would the benefit be? How would this make the lives of people building ASP.NET Core applications better?

Great! I just need what i need when i use asp.net core.

@davidfowl

What would the benefit be? How would this make the lives of people building ASP.NET Core applications better?

For the same reasons why you don't include the packages listed on the top of this issue. I just think that it's always easier to add more packages into the framework that will be shipped with .NET Core 3.0 than to remove packages later down the line. Why don't you start adding the smallest common denominator to run a vanilla ASP.NET Core app and then offer the rest as NuGet packages. If this turns out to be an issue for developers then you can always add more stuff later, but you will not be able to remove things later as easily anymore.

Because we have to strike a balance with being useful by default as well.

Ok, well I think vanilla ASP.NET Core is already useful (and I thought you think so too, otherwise why didn't you make it useful?), but if you have already set your mind on what should be in the framework and what not then nevermind ;)

If you were being a purist, you wouldn't have most of the middleware or MVC or SignalR in the box because they aren't strictly necessary. Drawing this line between what the default set of things should be and not is pretty much a gut feel and fuzzy thing (based on experience, looking at other platforms past and present and making a call). As of ASP.NET Core 3.0 we don't have plans to pull those out (at least right now).

Yeah I know this is always a tough call to make, but I am sometimes not sure what the justification is for the tendency (by Microsoft) to bloat things more than necessary. The way how you position your own products on the market is how it is going to be perceived. ASP.NET Core is supposed to be the new modern composable and flexible web framework, but the way how you position everything is that ASP.NET Core is useless unless you force MVC + SignalR + Identity + EF down on everyone. In my opinion you have already made the call of where the lines should be drawn, that's why MVC and SignalR are not embedded in ASP.NET Core but a separate frameworks which can be added when desired, so why are you blurring these lines now? It feels inconsistent and I can't think of any value you get from it. Instead of just promoting ASP.NET Core + a thriving open source eco system you are promoting a very narrow web experience. All it does is create frustration with those who want to be slightly different and more work for yourself as you end up pushing things on people which they might not want.

It's not like people will not use MVC if you don't stuff it into the default framework. Make it a single NuGet package and nobody will complain that they have to get MVC from NuGet. It's more likely that more people will come and ask why you bloated the default framework with things they don't want like me.

I take that this is a discussion and still something which you guys might consider, so if there's one thing I would like you to ask is bring this question up with your team perhaps again and see if you're all really set on this or if you can soften towards my idea :)

P.S: Not sure if that's the case, but I hope that SignalR is a separate NuGet package as well. It's like as if you'd include Bootstrap and Angular2 into your default framework. If these two products were developed by Microsoft then you'd probably do it, but it wouldn't make sense and I think only because they are done by a third party you see how it doesn't make sense.

TBH I'd love to see more stuff removed from default installation. Especially MVC. This is what makes alternative Frameworks on top of ASP.NET Core even more attractive. Also I wonder why things like ContentResult live in MVC and not in core. It's used a lot in azure functions and now I always have to reference the MVC stuff - just for ContentResult.

I think the point is more that it shouldn't really negatively impact you to have the MVC stuff in the ASPNET SDK. Most devs will be using it so shipping it that way is preferred over bloating restore load. If you don't want it, you can just not use it. Most of the packages listed above bring in 3rd party dependencies (json), have some heavy aspect (razor), or are conceptually separate from ASPNET and often referenced outside of the SDK (EFCore).

As much as I agree with defaulting to minimums to foster an equal playing field for OSS frameworks, that does have to be balanced. In the early days of core (beta and even 1.0) things were packages everywhere and that was WAY more confusing and restore took forever.

@psibernetic even if stuff is in separated packages the .net core installer can put these packages alreadyin local caches.

@psibernetic You are the second person mentioning that it's important to balance, but what does that even mean? The balance between what? Let's not talk about extremes, because that's obviously not good, let's talk about realistic proposals here. If MVC is a single NuGet package, in which way does it impact usability? It really doesn't and that's my point. Thinking that you are going to solve one extreme by implementing the opposite extreme is narrow thinking. There's many in-between. The framework doesn't have to be bloated and MVC and SignalR doesn't have to be fragmented into 100 packages either. Both can be avoided at the same time.

Give me one real world case where having MVC as a single NuGet package would be confusing, the restore would take forever, or any of the other negatives which you have mentioned?

And talking about restore time...

IMHO it's more important to have fast starting containers or serverless architecture (as that's what has a real world impact on business) than having a slightly faster build on a developer machine. Yes, the latter is also hugely important and I want it to be blazingly fast, but if I'd have to rank the importance then I rather take a minor hit on my dev machine than my production infrastructure in the cloud. So keeping the footprint as small as possible is just (if not more) important than keeping the restore time down.