With that many ongoing information and technology updates faster and faster, I’ll try to summarize my blog posts and twitter tweets from the previous month – things that have been important for me, and are probably important for you as well – with many links for more information – covering my book Professional C# 6 and .NET Core, .NET Core, UWP, Microsoft Azure, and more.
Professional C# 6 and .NET Core 1.0
My newest book, Professional C# 6 and .NET Core 1.0 is now released since a few weeks. This is a book of course interesting for .NET Core developers, but also interesting for .NET developers using the full .NET Framework. I’ve written a few blog posts to give more information on this:
What’s in there for WPF Developers
What’s in there for UWP Developers
What’s in there for ASP.NET Core Web Developers
I’ve updated the source code to RTM of .NET Core.
On the wish of a reader I’ve also updated Visual Studio screenshots. Check Book Updates for these.
I hope you enjoy the book – I would be grateful for a review on Amazon.com 🙂
.NET Core
In July I’ve written several blog posts about features from .NET Core. Let’s start first by explaining the different parts of .NET Core:
What is .NET Core?
My blog article What is .NET Core? covers
- The framework
- The runtime
- ASP.NET Core
- Entity Framework Core
- .NET Standard
- .NET Core Tools (CLI)
Be aware that if you are creating applications using the .NET Framework, you can also take advantage of new .NET Core libraries.
dotnet-new
The command line comes back into the focus. With .NET Core we’ve great .NET Core CLI tools, and the new option was enhanced with the release of .NET Core 1.0, it will also be extended in the future:
2016 is the year of the command line
Markdown
Markdown makes it easier to write blog posts. I also use this technology for a lot more. The blog article Using Markdown introduces Markdown, and also shows how it can be used with .NET Core.
Markdown is a great format for writing
Dependency Injection Framework
The new Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection framework is a part of .NET Core that you can also use from legacy applications. With the blog article .NET Core Dependency Injection with Options I’ve written another article on a multi-part series of articles for this DI framework. Expect some more information to follow.
I’m using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection with ASP.NET Core, WPF, UWP, and Xamarin.
Some more news on .NET Core
Microsoft announced a 3 year support for Long-term support (LTS) versions for .NET Core, detailed information is available in the blog .NET Support and Versioning
Compared to the .NET Framework, .NET Core has shorter support times.
The .NET Core Roadmap gives great information on verion 1.0.1 planned for August, the updates for Q4 2016/Q1 2017 and Q1 2017 / Q2 2017.
A patch release for .NET Core is coming in August, a first minor update in Q4 2016 (or Q1 2017) and .NET Standard 2.0 in 2017.
Universal Windows Platform
While I was working on several UWP applications this month, I’ve also done a blog post Compiled Data Binding with UWP. I received feedback that this feature is a major wish for WPF as well. There’s no infomration about availability with WPF, but I’m happy to have this feature (and others) with UWP.
Compiled data binding gives compile-time errors when properties are not found.
Some more news on the UWP and Windows 10:
The path forward for existing desktop apps gives information about updates of the Desktop App Converter and the three phases using the Desktop Bridge converting apps:
- Convert (convert the app to the new packaging format)
- Enhance (with UWP API calls)
- Extend (using a new App Container process)
New Windows 10 builds coming right after the Anniversary Update
Windows 10 Anniversary SDK preview builds have become available: Windows 10 Anniversary SDK Preview Build 14388 Released. Now it will not take a long time (Aug 2nd, 2016), so if you didn’t install the preview yet you better wait on the release.
What you should be aware of with XAML composition and the Anniversary update: Changes to XAML-Composition Interop
Bash on Windows Getting productive with Windows Subsystem for Linux
I’m teaching a UWP workshop that is also available as a special company-based workshop:
Programming Universal Windows Platform Apps
Conferences and Trainings
In September I’m speaking at the BASTA! in Mainz:
Vorteile von .NET Core und CLI
For my blog readers I can offer a special discount code on registering at BASTA!: basta_cn
I also have some open workshops with guaranteed dates:
ASP.NET Core Websites and Services
Programming Universal Windows Platform Apps
More News
Some more news on Entity Framework Core, Windows 10, Docker, Microsoft Azure, and UI Design:
Entity Framework Core
Entity Framework Core is still far away from the features from Entity Framework 6, but more and more features are coming. Here is a list of Entity Framework Core 1.1 features.
Upcoming features with 1.1:
- LINQ improvements (improved translations, queries for non-model types)
- DbSet.Find – find entities based on the primary key value
- Explicit loading – trigger population of a navigation property
- Additional EntityEntry APIs coming (from EF6)
- connection resiliency
- pluralization support
- stable release tools
Web Apps
A good blog article writes about Progressive Web Apps with the Progress of Web Apps.
Docker
Docker for Windows and Mac is now generally available.
Microsoft Azure
Local Instance for Azure DocumentDB coming in 2016
Issues found with Application Insights can be directly integrated with GitHub: Application Insights: Work item integration with GitHub.
Azure Logic Apps is now generally available.
Always Encrypted in Azure SQL Database is now generally available.
Azure Stack will be released as an appliance in mid-2017 in conjunction with HPE, Dell, and Lenovo.
Cortana Intelligence with Bing Predicts is in preview.
The Azure usage and billing portal is open sourced and available on GitHub.
Developer Tools
Visual Studio vnext will get a new installer for faster and simpler installations.
Languages
ECMAScript 6 is feature complete with changes on
- customizability on regular expressions
- multi-tier engine design
- Structures
- Object Property Conditions
- Adaptive Watchpoints
TypeScript 2 Beta was announced with
- Non-nullable Types
- Control flow analysis for types
- Easier module declarations
The ECMA C# Standard committee met in person for the first time in 10 years
UI Design
Adding color for the emotional impact in your application design
An interesting read on what you should be aware of that kills your mobile app design 6 assumptions
Summary
It has been a great month with .NET Core, UWP, and more. I hope you found some interesting information with my collection for July. Looking forward to August with the Anniversary update of Windows 10 and more.
Have fun with programming and learning!
Christian
Links to images used:
© Alexander Raths | Dreamstime.com – Vintage typewriter
© Monicado | Dreamstime Laptop, Tablet PC and SmartPhone with Apps
csharp.christiannagel.com 
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