C# 12 and .NET 8 – Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals: Start building websites and services with ASP.NET Core 8, Blazor, and EF Core 8

by Mark J. Price

An accessible guide for beginner-to-intermediate programmers to the concepts, real-world applications, and latest features of C# 12 and .NET 8, with hands-on exercises using Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio Code. Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in PDF format. This Packt bestseller will give you a solid foundation to start building apps and services with confidence. You'll learn object-oriented programming, writing, testing, and debugging functions, and implementing interfaces. You'll take on .NET APIs for managing and querying data, working with the filesystem, and serialization. As you progress, you'll explore examples of cross-platform projects you can build and deploy, such as websites and services using ASP.NET Core. This latest edition integrates .NET 8 enhancements into its type aliasing and primary constructors for concise and expressive code, and lambda expressions with parameter defaults for more flexible code. You’ll handle errors robustly through new built-in guard clauses and explore a simplified implementation of caching in ASP.NET Core 8. If that’s not enough, you’ll also see how native ahead-of-time (AOT) compiler publish lets web services reach new heights. You’ll work with the seamless new HTTP Editor in Visual Studio 2022 to enhance the testing and debugging process. You’ll even get introduced to Blazor Full Stack with its new unified hosting model for unparalleled code reusability. This book is for beginners as well as intermediate-level C# and .NET programmers who have worked with C# in the past and want to catch up with the changes made in the last few years. Prior exposure to C# or .NET is not a prerequisite. A general understanding of programming will help you to work through the book more comfortably, though the content is suitable for those completely new to programming. If you already have some C# and .NET skills and want to focus on developing practical apps, you can pick up Mark’s other .NET book, Apps and Services with .NET 8, instead.

828 pages, Paperback

Published November 14, 2023

About the author

Mark J Price is a former Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and current Microsoft Specialist: Programming in C# and Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions, with more than 20 years' of educational and programming experience.

Since 1993 Mark has passed more than 80 Microsoft programming exams and specializes in preparing others to pass them too. His students range from professionals with decades of experience to 16-year-old apprentices with none. Mark successfully guides all of them by combining educational skills with real-world experience consulting and developing systems for enterprises worldwide.

Between 2001 and 2003 Mark was employed full-time to write official courseware for Microsoft in Redmond, USA. Mark's team wrote the first training courses for C# while it was still an early alpha version. While with Microsoft he taught "train-the-trainer" classes to get other MCTs up-to-speed on C# and .NET.

Currently, Mark creates and delivers training courses for Episerver's Digital Experience Platform, the best .NET CMS for Digital Marketing and E-commerce.

In 2010 Mark studied for a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). He taught GCSE and A-Level mathematics in two London secondary schools. Mark holds a Computer Science BSc. Hons. Degree from the University of Bristol, UK.