In this C# 8 tutorial, I am going to introduce a selection of currently planned features which will most probably end up in the final release. All of the C# 8 features are still early in development and are likely to change. 

C# is rapidly approaching its third decade of life. Originally released in 2000, the language has grown and changed across 7 major versions. Once a knock off of Java in all but name has jumped out ahead on many aspects. 

.NET 8 Preview 4 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.

Here’s a summary of what’s new in this preview release:

Blazor

Streaming rendering with Blazor components

Handling form posts with Blazor SSR

Route to named elements in Blazor

Webcil packaging for Blazor WebAssembly apps

API authoring

Expanded support for form binding in minimal APIs

API project template includes .http file

Native AOT

Logging and exception handling in compile-time generated minimal APIs

ASP.NET Core top-level APIs annotated for trim warnings

Reduced app size with configurable HTTPS support

Worker Service template updates

Additional default services configured in the slim builder

API template JSON configuration changes

Support for JSON serialization of compiler-generated IAsyncEnumerable unspeakable types

Authentication and authorization

Identity API endpoints

Improved support for custom authorization policies with IAuthorizationRequirementData

ASP.NET Core metrics

For more details on the ASP.NET Core work planned for .NET 8 see the full ASP.NET Core roadmap for .NET 8 on GitHub. 

.NET 8 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.

In .NET 8 we plan to make broad investments across ASP.NET Core. Below are some of the areas we plan to focus on: 

namespace CS8Tests;

public class InterceptorsSample
{
    public string GetText(string text)
    {
        return $"{text}, World!";
    }
}

namespace System.Runtime.CompilerServices;

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = true, Inherited = false)]
public sealed class InterceptsLocationAttribute : Attribute
{
    public InterceptsLocationAttribute(string filePath, int line, int character)
    {
    }
}

using CS8Tests;

var example = new InterceptorsSample();
var text = example.GetText("Hello");
Console.WriteLine(text); //Hello, World!

using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;

namespace CS8Tests;

public static class MyInterceptor
{
    [InterceptsLocation("C:\\Path\\To\\CS8Tests\\Program.cs", 4, 20)] 
    public static string InterceptorMethod(this InterceptorsSample example, string text)
    {
        return $"{text}, DNT!";
    }
}

 error CS9137: The 'interceptors' experimental feature is not enabled in this namespace. Add
'<InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces>$(InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces);CS8Tests</InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces>'
to your project.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <!--<NoWarn>Test001</NoWarn>-->
    <InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces>$(InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces);CS8Tests</InterceptorsPreviewNamespaces>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Hello, DNT!

using CS8Tests;
using System;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;

[CompilerGenerated]
internal class Program
{
  private static void <Main>$(string[] args)
  {
    Console.WriteLine(new InterceptorsSample().InterceptorMethod("Hello"));
  }

  public Program()
  {
    base..ctor();
  }
}

app.MapGet("/products", handler: (int? page, int? pageLength, MyDb db) => { ... })

using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;

namespace CS8Tests;

[Experimental(diagnosticId: "Test001")]
public class ExperimentalAttributeDemo
{
    public void Print()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello Experimental Attribute");
    }
}

var experimentalAttributeDemo = new ExperimentalAttributeDemo();

error Test001: 'CS8Tests.ExperimentalAttributeDemo' is for evaluation purposes only
and is subject to change or removal in future updates. Suppress this diagnostic to proceed.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>

    <NoWarn>Test001</NoWarn>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

#pragma warning disable Test001
var demo = new ExperimentalAttributeDemo();
#pragma warning restore Test001

using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;

namespace CS8Tests;

[Experimental(diagnosticId: "Test001")]
public class ExperimentalAttributeDemo
{
    [Experimental(diagnosticId: "Test002")]
    public void Print()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello Experimental Attribute");
    }
}

var demo = new ExperimentalAttributeDemo();
demo.Print();

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>

    <NoWarn>Test001,Test002</NoWarn>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

#pragma warning disable Test001,Test002
var demo = new ExperimentalAttributeDemo();
demo.Print();
#pragma warning restore Test001,Test002

The fourth preview of Entity Framework Core (EF Core) 8 is available on NuGet today!

Basic information

EF Core 8, or just EF8, is the successor to EF Core 7, and is scheduled for release in November 2023, at the same time as .NET 8.

EF8 previews currently target .NET 6, and can therefore be used with either .NET 6 (LTS) or .NET 7. This will likely be updated to .NET 8 as we near release.

EF8 will align with .NET 8 as a long-term support (LTS) release. See the .NET support policy for more information. 

The first preview of Entity Framework Core (EF Core) 8 is available on NuGet today!

Basic information

EF Core 8, or just EF8, is the successor to EF Core 7, and is scheduled for release in November 2023, at the same time as .NET 8.

EF8 currently targets .NET 6. This will likely be updated to .NET 8 as we near release.

EF8 will align with .NET 8 as a long-term support (LTS) release. See the .NET support policy for more information.