The Microsoft Build 2020 conference this year is completely free. Watch the live event on the official Build 2020 website. In this post, I'd like to share what I think are the most important and impactful changes for C# developers.
ASP.NET Blazor Web Assembly support
Yeahhh! C# developers can now develop client-side web applications using C# instead of Javascript. There is no need for a plugin because this technology is leveraging the WebAssembly standard to natively run a .NET runtime directly in the browser.
.NET Multi-Platform App UI (.NET MAUI)
The main C# developer dream is about to become a reality with .NET 6. Microsoft will introduce a technology to build UI apps for any device (both desktop & mobile) and any operating systems from a single codebase and project system. This is effectively the ultimate evolution of Xamarin.Forms. We can expect an initial preview at the end of 2020.
.NET 5 is planned to be released on November 2020. .NET 5 is the unification of all the .NET technologies and workflows into the original brand. No more .NET Framework and .NET Core fragmentation. Going forward there will be just one .NET. All the new features in C# 9 will also be released with .NET 5 including records and top level statements. So exciting!
Visual Studio Live Share Improvements
Visual Studio Live Share now support text, voice chat as well as sharing running apps. This will enable developers to collaborate without the need of using external screen sharing applications.
The Windows Terminal has arrived
The Windows Terminal is now out of preview and ready to be used more widely. The
A more agile, modern and open Windows developer platform
Microsoft launched the Project Reunion to modernize the Windows developer platform and the existing apps to reduce fragmentation between various Windows APIs. The aim is to create a common platform to build the latest client platform innovations while maintaining backward-compatibility for existing apps.
Support for GUI apps in the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
You will be able to run a Linux GUI app directly without any third-party servers. Installation of the WSL will also be simplified to a simple command "wsl.exe -install" to streamline the Linux experience on Windows.
New Windows developer tools and APIs
Microsoft is introducing the Windows SDK Build Tools NuGet package to be used in CI/CD pipelines to simplify packing your app using MSIX.
A new Windows SDK .NET package is introduced to provide an interop abstraction for .NET applications to call WinRT APIs. A new C#/WinRT tool is provided for .NET 5 apps to call WinRT APIs and use third-party WinRT components.
The major upgrade of the native Windows 10 UI platform (WinUI) is now in preview. WinUI is fully decoupled from the UWP SDK. WinUI 3 allow to extend existing WPF, WinForms and MFC apps with modern Fluent UI.
Microsoft introduces a daily live programming and discussions for developers. Learn TV bring together content from various Microsoft channels into a single unified space.
Tons of new Azure announcements
If you are a C# developer you are certainly familiar with the Microsoft cloud.
You can now embed deployment scripts (powershell or bash) in ARM templates for end to end environment setup.
Microsoft announced new capabilities for Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MySQL.
Azure Cosmos DB serverless provide a more cost-effective way to use Cosmos DB.
Some Azure Cognitive Services can be deployed inside containers anywhere from the cloud to the edge. Microsoft introduce Static Web Apps as a new serverless hosting option in App Service.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) support for Windows Server containers and much more.
Microsoft Build 2020 is a fantastic event to learn all the latest development news from Microsoft. Check all the session on the official build website.