What powers Language In Use

Why .NET

I've watched a lot of frameworks come and go. What I wanted for this project was predictability: a stack that's still going to be around in five years, with the same APIs, the same tooling, and the same people behind it. That meant .NET and C#, Microsoft's open-source, cross-platform runtime and language.

.NET runs everywhere — Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, the browser (via WebAssembly). One language, one ecosystem, one set of libraries for everything from the database query to the mobile UI.

The website

The public site is a ASP.NET Core app using Blazor for the UI. Pages render server-side for speed and SEO; interactive pieces (the editor, the admin inbox, the reader's word highlighter) run as server components over SignalR so they stay responsive without shipping a heavy JavaScript bundle.

The backend

The API is also ASP.NET Core, backed by Entity Framework Core for the ORM and SQL Server for the database. A second database (WordBank) holds the dictionary and verb conjugations — sharing the same schema patterns so the two worlds feel unified to the code that spans them.

The mobile & desktop apps

All apps are built with .NET MAUI — a single codebase that compiles to iOS, Android, Windows and macOS. MAUI re-uses the same C# models, the same DTOs, even the same validation attributes as the website, so new features land on every platform in the same week.

Infrastructure

We run on Azure App Service for the web tier, Azure SQL for the database, and a dedicated file service for user-uploaded images. CI/CD runs on Azure Pipelines with a build-and-publish-on-merge workflow; environments are staged and preview slots let us smoke-test before swapping production.

The small but important bits

• OpenAI — powers the AI-assisted post analysis (important-word extraction, translations, definitions).
• Pexels — suggests stock photos per word so admins can illustrate posts and dictionary entries.
• Web Push — VAPID-signed notifications straight to the browser, no third-party service required.
• Serilog — structured logging with console + rolling-file sinks.
• Bootstrap 5 + Bootstrap Icons — the visual foundation of every page.