This chapter is about setting up your development environment, understanding the similarities and differences between .NET Core, .NET Framework, .NET Standard, and .NET Native, and using various tools to create the simplest application possible with C# and .NET Core.
Most people learn complex topics by imitation and repetition rather than reading a detailed explanation of theory. So, I will not explain every keyword and step. The idea is to get you to write some code, build an application, and see it run. You don't need to know the details of how it all works yet.
In the words of Samuel Johnson, author of the English dictionary in 1755, I have likely committed "a few wild blunders, and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity is free." I take sole responsibility for these and hope you appreciate the challenge of my attempt to lash the wind by writing this book about .NET Core and its command-line tooling during its rocky birth during 2016 and 2017.
This chapter covers the following topics:
- Setting up your development environment
- Understanding .NET
- Writing and compiling code using the .NET Core CLI tool
- Writing and compiling code using Visual Studio 2017
- Writing and compiling code using Visual Studio Code
- Writing and compiling code using Visual Studio for Mac
- Managing source code with GitHub