.NET is one of the best software development framework and ecosystem designed and supported by Microsoft that allows for easy desktop and web application engineering. It’s a popular free platform which is used for a lot of different types of applications as it provides the programming environment for most software development phases. .NET best suits businesses that look for a wide range of features like web-based services, desktop software, and cloud infrastructure support. .NET provides a lot of features to build applications on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, watchOS, Android, tvOS, or using WebAssembly. The platform comes with new APIs, language features, and runtime capabilities.

Recently, Microsoft .NET open source framework just celebrated its 20th birthday and the company is now pushing ahead with a new version, .NET 7. In a blog post, Microsoft said they would be releasing .NET 7 Preview 1 alongside ASP.NET Core Preview 1 and EF7 Preview 1.

“.NET 7 is built on the foundation established by .NET 6, which includes a unified set of base libraries, runtime, and SDK, a simplified development experience, and higher developer productivity,” says Microsoft’s Jeremy Likness. “Major areas of focus for .NET 7 include improved support for cloud native scenarios, tools to make it easier to upgrade legacy projects, and simplifying the developer experience by making it easier to work with containers.”

.NET 7 Preview 1 is now available!. This is the first preview of the next major version of .NET, which will include the next wave of innovations for web development with ASP.NET Core. This .NET 7 Preview 1 is the first of many. .NET 7 preview releases in preparation for the .NET 7 release in November 2022.

In May 2019, the company announced the big release that would tie the ecosystem together: All .NET elements were supposed to be bundled in the .NET 5 development platform. While changes were made to the schedule because of COVID-19, the .NET 5 unified development platform was finally introduced in November 2020. The successor to .NET Core 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.8, .NET 5 puts order into the fragmentation of the .NET world. It includes ASP.NET Core, Xamarin, Entity Framework Core, WPF, WinForms, and ML.NET. While .NET 5 set the unification foundations, the newest .NET 6 version delivered the final parts of it in November 2021, with Visual Studio 2022 released the same day. This is a unified platform for building projects across cloud, browser, IoT, mobile, and desktop environments, enabling all to use the same .NET libraries, SDK, and runtime.

Some headline features of this .NET 7 is the addition of .NET Multi-platform App UI (MAUI). Also, the new tools that will make it easier to build cloud-native apps by simplifying the setup and configuration necessary to implement secure authentication and authorization, and also improving the performance of application startup and runtime execution.

More .NET news

.NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, and 4.6.1 will reach End of Support on Apr 26, 2022. After this date, they will no longer provide updates, including security fixes or technical support for these versions. If you are currently using .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, or 4.6.1 runtime you need to update your deployed runtime to a more recent version – at least .NET Framework 4.6.2 before April 26, 2022 – in order to continue to receive updates and technical support. There is no need for you to retarget or recompile your application against .NET Framework 4.6.2. When .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, and 4.6.1 reach the end of support, applications that run on top of these versions will continue to run. Starting May 2022, Microsoft won’t be issuing security updates for .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, and 4.6.1 when they issue these security updates for .NET Framework 4.6.2 and later versions. This means that starting May 2022, if a computer has .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, or 4.6.1 installed, it may be insecure. Additionally, if you run into any issue and need technical support, you will be asked to first upgrade to a supported version.

Now you may ask why are they doing this?

The .NET Framework was previously digitally signed using certificates that use the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1). SHA-1 is a legacy cryptographic hashing algorithm that is no longer deemed secure. After looking at download and usage data across the different versions of .NET Framework, they have found that updating .NET Framework 4.6.2 and newer versions to support newer digital certificates (for the installers) would satisfy the vast majority (98%) of users without them needing to make a change. The small set of users using .NET Framework 4.5.2, 4.6, or 4.6.1 will need to upgrade to a later .NET Framework version to stay supported.

There is no change to the support timelines for any other .NET Framework version, including .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, which will continue to be supported as documented on .NET Framework Lifecycle FAQ.

After many years opposing open source, Microsoft is now leaning into making the space better. It’s fair to say many developers were initially skeptical of Microsoft and its commitment to making open source tools as the company, seeking to maintain its dominant position, opposed many developers and projects. But Microsoft’s GitHub acquisition(opens in a new tab) for $7.5 billion in 2018 helped the company turn a new page and win over skeptics.

By maintaining .NET 7 – which is truly open source and cross-platform – so thoroughly (you could even say lovingly), Microsoft is doing its bit for the furtherance of computing. Tell us what is, please share with us what you think about this new .NET 7 release.

Here’s an interesting new project. It’s called DevURLs and it’s a really nice developer news aggregator. It collects news stories from top 30 software development websites and programming blogs and presents it in a neat way.

This website is now my homepage and I visit it multiple times a day to get my daily dose of programming news.

Here’s something that all you, my fellow C# developers, will find useful. Yesterday a company called Browserling announced that they’re launching a network of online developer tools.

If you haven’t heard about Browserling then you should check them out. They’re a friendly and fun cross-browser testing service and they’ve created and open-sourced over a hundred projects, including browserify for node.js.

Online developer tools network is a collection of websites where each website focuses on a single category of developer tools. Right now there are four websites in the network and they’re releasing 30 more websites over the next couple of years.

• Online String Tools – A collection of online string utilities
• Online JSON Tools – A collection of online JSON utilities
• Online XML Tools – A collection of online XML utilities
• Online CSV Tools – A collection of online CSV utilities

All websites in the network are ad-free. The reason why Browserling built this network is because their developers got fed up with other online services that offer similar tools. They were often filled with ads, popunders, blinking buttons and other crap. Browserling’s developers had had enough of this and they decided to create their own utilities that just work in your browser and do the right thing.

Let’s take a look at each site in more details.

Online String Tools

String Tools for Developers

Online String Tools has hundreds of tiny string utilities for converting strings, generating strings, encoding/decoding strings, filtering and replacing strings and more. All string utilities work right in your browser. There is no server-side processing going on and everything is super fast.

Online JSON Tools

JSON Tools for Developers

Online JSON Tools has two dozen utilities for working with JSON config files and JSON documents. Just like string tools, JSON tools work in your browser and are powered by modern JavaScript code, which makes them very fast. You can convert JSON to various data formats, encode and decode JSON, and compress, validate and prettify JSON.

Online XML Tools

XML Tools for Developers

Similar to string and JSON tools, this website offers two dozen utilities for working with XML configuration files and XML documents. All tools on this website also work inside your browser and nothing gets sent to the server. You can pretty much do all XML tasks with these tools. For example, you can compress XML, prettify XML and validate XML documents, and you can also convert XML to other data formats, such as YAML, TSV, CSV, JSON and Base64.

Online CSV Tools

CSV Tools for Developers

Online CSV Tools offers over two dozen different utilities for working with CSV data files. All CSV data processing happens in the browser and it’s super fast. You can convert CSV to a bunch of other data formats, like JSON and YAML, then you can work with CSV columns and rows. You can insert rows, swap columns, as well as change CSV delimiter and change quoting of CSV fields.

What’s next?

Browserling loves marathons. They will be adding 30 more websites to their network over the next 5 years. Here are some of the other sites they will be launching:

• Online BROWSER Tools – A collection of browser/web developer tools
• Online YAML Tools – A collection of Yet Another Markup Language tools
• Online TSV Tools – A collection of Tab Separated Values tools
• Online IMAGE Tools – A collection of image editing tools
• Online AUDIO Tools – A collection of audio editing tools
• Online PDF Tools – A collection of PDF editing tools
• Online CRYPTO Tools – A collection of cryptography tools
• Online RANDOM Tools – A collection of randomization tools
• Online FILE Tools – A collection of file editing tools
• Online TIME Tools – A collection of various time and date tools
• Online LIST Tools – A collection of tools for working with data lists
• Online CSS Tools – A collection of CSS tools
• Online JS Tools – A collection of JavaScript tools
• … and more websites!

If you found these tools useful, please follow Browserling on Twitter and follow Browserling on Facebook.

I have a friend who is just starting to learn C#, so I am getting some interesting questions whose answers seem obvious to me but apparently not to beginners.  Today I answer the question: What’s the best way to initialize Flags enumerations in C#?

As a quick review, here is how Microsoft describes the Flags enumeration:  “You can use an enumeration type to define bit flags, which enables an instance of the enumeration type to store any combination of the values that are defined in the enumerator list.  (Of course, some combinations may not be meaningful or allowed in your program code.)  You create a bit flags enum by applying the System.FlagsAttribute attribute and defining the values appropriately so that AND, OR, NOT and XOR bitwise operations can be performed on them.”

In other words, each enumeration value must correspond to a single, unique bit.  So one way to initialize flags is to use integers that are a power of 2.  The disadvantage of this method is it’s not easy to see which bit is being set, and errors might creep in enumerations with many flags, especially when you start getting up into the range of 16384, 32768, 65536, and 131072.  But there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach either:

[Flags]
public enum DaysOfTheWeek
{
	None = 0,
	Sunday = 1,
	Monday = 2,
	Tuesday = 4,
	Wednesday = 8,
	Thursday = 16,
	Friday = 32,
	Saturday = 64,
}

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I was using Visual Studio on my laptop when suddenly the font in the code editor got so small I could barely read it.  I figured I must have engaged some obscure key sequence, so I did a little research and discovered there are many ways to change the zoom level in Visual Studio:

Keyboard Shortcuts

• To make the font larger, press CTRL+SHIFT+PERIOD
• To make the font smaller, press CTRL+SHIFT+COMMA

Keyboard+Mouse Shortcuts

• To make the font larger, press & hold the CTRL key while scrolling the mouse wheel up one click
• To make the font smaller, press & hold the CTRL key while scrolling the mouse wheel down one click

Note this also works with the trackpad on most laptops.  Sliding your finger up or down along the right edge of the trackpad is the same as scrolling the mouse wheel.  By the way, I had the CTRL key pressed while I slid my finger down along the right edge of the trackpad, and this is how I accidentally made the font really small.  Also note that each click increases or decreases the font size by 10%.

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C# modeling tools help you model, visualize, analyze, understand and document C# source code.  Most modeling tools use the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is a standardized way to create visual models from object-oriented source code.

Following is a list of modeling tools that run on Microsoft Windows and model software written with the C# programming language.  Prices listed are direct from the manufacturer for a single license of the “Professional Version” which includes C# round-trip engineering.  This means the modeling tool can read C# source code and generate models, allow the user to make changes to the model, then automatically generate the updated C# code.  Foreign prices are converted to U.S. Dollars at the current exchange rate. 

Please comment with any corrections or additions, as I will keep this list updated.

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Wow, I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this little gem on TechCrunch:

Android chief Andy Rubin wrote in a 2005 email, “If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language – or – 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”

Imagine how different the world would be today if Google had chosen .NET instead of Java as the native development framework for the Android mobile operating system…

Read more at DevTopics >>

An enumerator enables you to iterate over a collection in a foreach loop.  You can use foreach to iterate over all C# collection classes, because all C# collection classes inherit from the IEnumerable interface (regular or generic).  IEnumerable contains the GetEnumerator method, which returns an enumerator.

Occasionally you may find a need to create a custom enumerator, which used to be somewhat of a challenge until the yield keyword was introduced.  Here is how Microsoft describes yield:

The yield keyword signals to the compiler that the method in which it appears is an iterator block.  The compiler generates a class to implement the behavior that is expressed in the iterator block.  In the iterator block, the yield keyword is used together with the return keyword to provide a value to the enumerator object.  This is the value that is returned, for example, in each loop of a foreach statement.

So rather than creating your own enumerator class and managing the enumeration state — which is time consuming and tricky — you can simply write the enumeration logic in the GetEnumerator method, and the yield keyword will automagically wrap your code in a handy-dandy enumerator.

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I jump into the controversy about the future of the .NET Framework and HTML5+JavaScript.

Read “.NET Isn’t Dead” on DevTopics.com >>

YourLanguageSucks is a wiki on theory.org that lists reasons why the most popular programming languages suck.  There are long lists of reasons why Java, JavaScript, C++ and PHP suck.  But the list for C# is very short:

• Supports ‘goto’.
• Two distinct sets of collections: non-generic and generic.  Stack and Queue have the same name in both their generic and non-generic flavors, but then we have Hashtable (non-generic) and Dictionary (generic).

The first reason is easy to discount: just avoid using goto!  The second reason is valid, but not really an issue if you use only generic collections, as I do.

Read the rest on DevTopics >>