C# 9 and .NET 5 Modern Cross-Platform Development Fifth Edition

A comprehensive guide for beginners to learn the key concepts, real-world applications, and latest features of C# 9 and .NET 5 with hands-on exercises using VS Code

▶Book Description
In C# 9 and .NET 5 – Modern Cross-Platform Development, Fifth Edition, expert teacher Mark J. Price gives you everything you need to start programming C# applications.

This latest edition uses the popular Visual Studio Code editor to work across all major operating systems. It is fully updated and expanded with a new chapter on the Microsoft Blazor framework.

The book's first part teaches the fundamentals of C#, including object-oriented programming and new C# 9 features such as top-level programs, target-typed new object instantiation, and immutable types using the record keyword. Part 2 covers the .NET APIs, for performing tasks like managing and querying data, monitoring and improving performance, and working with the file system, async streams, serialization, and encryption. Part 3 provides examples of cross-platform apps you can build and deploy, such as websites and services using ASP.NET Core or mobile apps using Xamarin.Forms.

By the end of the book, you will have acquired the understanding and skills you need to use C# 9 and .NET 5 to create websites, services, and mobile apps.

▶What You Will Learn
⦁ Build your own types with object-oriented programming
⦁ Query and manipulate data using LINQ
⦁ Build websites and services using ASP.NET Core 5
⦁ Create intelligent apps using machine learning
⦁ Use Entity Framework Core and work with relational databases
⦁ Discover Windows app development using the Universal Windows Platform and XAML
⦁ Build rich web experiences using the Blazor framework
⦁ Build mobile applications for iOS and Android using Xamarin.Forms

▶Key Features
⦁Explore the newest additions to C# 9, the .NET 5 class library, Entity Framework Core and Blazor
⦁Strengthen your command of ASP.NET Core 5.0 and create professional websites and services
⦁Build cross-platform apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android

▶Who This Book Is For
This book is best for C# and .NET beginners, or programmers who have worked with C# in the past but feel left behind by the changes in the past few years. This book doesn't expect you to have any C# or .NET experience; however, you should have a general understanding of programming.

Students and professionals with a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) background can certainly benefit from this book.

▶What this book covers
⦁ Chapter 1, Hello, C#! Welcome, .NET!, is about setting up your development environment and using Visual Studio Code to create the simplest application possible with C# and .NET. You will learn how to write and compile code on any of the supported operating systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux variants. For simplified console apps, you will see the use of the top-level program feature introduced in C# 9. You will also learn the best places to look for help.

⦁ Chapter 2, Speaking C#, introduces the versions of C# and has tables showing which version introduced new features, and then explains the grammar and vocabulary that you will use every day to write the source code for your applications. In particular, you will learn how to declare and work with variables of different types, and about the big change in C# 8 with the introduction of nullable reference types.

⦁ Chapter 3, Controlling Flow and Converting Types, covers using operators to perform simple actions on variables including comparisons, writing code that makes decisions, pattern matching in C# 7 to C# 9, repeating a block of statements, and converting between types. It also covers writing code defensively to handle errors when they inevitably occur.

⦁ Chapter 4, Writing, Debugging, and Testing Functions, is about following the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle by writing reusable functions using both imperative and functional implementation styles. You will also learn how to use debugging tools to track down and remove bugs, monitoring your code while it executes to diagnose problems, and rigorously testing your code to remove bugs and ensure stability and reliability before it gets deployed into production.

⦁ Chapter 5, Building Your Own Types with Object-Oriented Programming, discusses all the different categories of members that a type can have, including fields to store data and methods to perform actions. You will use object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts, such as aggregation and encapsulation. You will learn language features such as tuple syntax support and out variables, and default literals and inferred tuple names, as well as how to define and work with immutable types using the new record keyword, init-only properties, and with expressions introduced in C# 9.

⦁ Chapter 6, Implementing Interfaces and Inheriting Classes, explains deriving new types from existing ones using OOP. You will learn how to define operators and local functions, delegates and events, how to implement interfaces about base and derived classes, how to override a type member, how to use polymorphism, how to create extension methods, and how to cast between classes in an inheritance hierarchy.

⦁ Chapter 7, Understanding and Packaging .NET Types, introduces the versions of .NET and has tables showing which version introduced new features, and then presents .NET types that are compliant with .NET Standard, and how they relate to C#. You will learn how to deploy and package your own apps and libraries.

⦁ Chapter 8, Working with Common .NET Types, discusses the types that allow your code to perform common practical tasks, such as manipulating numbers and text, storing items in collections, and implementing internationalization.

⦁ Chapter 9, Working with Files, Streams, and Serialization, talks about interacting with the filesystem, reading and writing to files and streams, text encoding, and serialization formats like JSON and XML, including the improved functionality and performance of the System.Text.Json classes in .NET 5.

⦁ Chapter 10, Protecting Your Data and Applications, is about protecting your data from being viewed by malicious users using encryption, and from being manipulated or corrupted using hashing and signing. You will also learn about authentication and authorization to protect applications from unauthorized users.

⦁ Chapter 11, Working with Databases Using Entity Framework Core, explains reading and writing to databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server and SQLite, using the object-relational mapping (ORM) technology named Entity Framework Core.

⦁ Chapter 12, Querying and Manipulating Data Using LINQ, teaches you Language INtegrated Queries (LINQ)—language extensions that add the ability to work with sequences of items and filter, sort, and project them into different outputs.

⦁ Chapter 13, Improving Performance and Scalability Using Multitasking, discusses allowing multiple actions to occur at the same time to improve performance, scalability, and user productivity. You will learn about the async Main feature and how to use types in the System.Diagnostics namespace to monitor your code to measure performance and efficiency.

⦁ Chapter 14, Introducing Practical Applications of C# and .NET, introduces you to the types of crossplatform applications that can be built using C# and .NET. You will also build an entity model to represent the Northwind database that will be used throughout Chapters 15 to 21.

⦁ Chapter 15, Building Websites Using ASP.NET Core Razor Pages, is about learning the basics of building websites with a modern HTTP architecture on the server side using ASP.NET Core. You will learn how to implement the ASP.NET Core feature known as Razor Pages, which simplifies creating dynamic web pages for small websites, and about building the HTTP request and response pipeline.

⦁ Chapter 16, Building Websites Using the Model-View-Controller Pattern, is about learning how to build large, complex websites in a way that is easy to unit test and manage with teams of programmers using ASP.NET Core MVC. You will learn about startup configuration, authentication, routes, models, views, and controllers.

⦁ Chapter 17, Building Websites Using a Content Management System, explains how a web Content Management System (CMS) can enable developers to rapidly build websites with a customizable administration user interface that non-technical users can use to create and manage their own content. As an example, you will learn about a simple open source .NETbased one named Piranha CMS.

⦁ Chapter 18, Building and Consuming Web Services, explains building backend REST architecture web services using the ASP.NET Core Web API and how to properly consume them using factory-instantiated HTTP clients.

⦁ Chapter 19, Building Intelligent Apps Using Machine Learning, introduces you to Microsoft's open source ML.NET package of machine learning algorithms, which can be used to embed adaptive intelligence into any cross-platform .NET app, such as a digital commerce website that provides product recommendations for visitors to add to their shopping cart.

⦁ Chapter 20, Building Web User Interfaces Using Blazor, introduces how to build web user interface components using Blazor that can be executed either on the server side or inside the client-side web browser. You will see the differences between Blazor Server and Blazor WebAssembly and how to build components that are easier to switch between the two hosting models.

⦁ Chapter 21, Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps, introduces you to taking C# mobile by building a cross-platform app for iOS and Android. The app for this chapter will be built using Visual Studio 2019 for Mac on macOS.