First of all, I find your question very interesting, but I find it wrong to compare the .sln file with global.json or the old .xproj file with project.json , because it does not have the same goals. In addition, I want to mention some other important files, such as package.json , bower.json (which are visible if you click the "Show all" button in the solution) and the important launchSettings.json file, which can be found in Properties (for more details, see documentation .
It is understood that the .sln and .xproj file .xproj should be changed and simplified in the future. On the other hand, there are several old file targets that need to be considered. I just want to mention someone.
First of all, it is important not only to create the code, but also to debug or run the target with some parameters. For example, if I am developing a Web Api component, then I may need to build it, and then check some methods (actions) by opening URLs, for example http://localhost:4745/api/product . Setting the application URL in the Visual Studio GUI will change the Properties\launchSettings.json and enable something like
"iisSettings": { "windowsAuthentication": false, "anonymousAuthentication": true, "iisExpress": { "applicationUrl": "http://localhost:4745/api/product", "sslPort": 0 } }
inside.
The following is a typical problem. I want to check if a new component (new web Api) is working with my old Visual Studio project. For example, I can create a new website or another project that invokes a Web Api from JavaScript (an HTML page that uses the jQuery.ajax fox example).
The old .sln file allows us to inform Visual Studio about the launch of the Web Api project each time a test project (or test website) is launched. This dependency cannot be configured using the new .json files.
One more example may be mentioned. It is clear that it has many existing components and class libraries. No need to rewrite everything at once. To use the old components and switch to the βnew worldβ, step by step you need to use the old .sln file and several old .xproj in one solution together with the new ASP.NET project. I should mention a problem that describes some problems with class library integration in ASP.NET 5 solution. It is clear that not all problems are solved now, but they should work in RC2 or RTM.
My answer is not clear. I am sure that the format of the .sln and .xproj will be changed soon, but I assume that we will receive several new .json files, because the existing files (for example, project.json ) do not contain all the information that I would like to have in the solution, if you think about testing and debugging several projects, and not just about creating target binaries.