Introducing this book and its contents

Let’s get started by introducing you to the code solutions, structure, and content of this book.

Getting code solutions for this book

You can complete all the coding tasks just from reading this book because all the code statements that you need to enter are shown in the pages. You do not need to download or clone the solution code to complete this book. The solution code is provided in the GitHub repository only so that you can view it if you get stuck working from the book, and to save you time from entering long files yourself. It is also more reliable to copy from an actual code file than from a PDF or other e-book format.

The GitHub repository for this book has solutions that use full application projects for all code tasks and exercises, found at the following link:

https://github.com/markjprice/cs14net10.

After navigating to the GitHub repository in your web browser, you can press the . (dot) key on your keyboard, or manually change .com to .dev in the link to convert the repository into a live code editor based on VS Code, called GitHub Codespaces, as shown in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1: GitHub Codespaces viewing the book’s GitHub repository

VS Code in a web browser is great to run alongside your chosen local code editor as you work through the book’s coding tasks. You can compare your code to the solution code and easily copy and paste parts if needed.

.NET terms used in this book

Throughout this book, I use the term modern .NET to refer to .NET 10 and its predecessors, like .NET 6, that derive from .NET Core. I use the term legacy .NET to refer to .NET Framework, Mono, Xamarin, and .NET Standard. Modern .NET is a unification of those legacy platforms and standards.

The style of this book

Most people learn complex topics best by imitation and repetition, rather than reading a detailed explanation of the theory; therefore, I will not overload you with detailed explanations of every step throughout this book. The idea is to get you to write some code and see it run.

You don’t need to know all the nitty-gritty details immediately. That will be something that comes with time as you build your own apps and go beyond what any book can teach you.

In the words of Samuel Johnson, author of the English dictionary in 1755, I have 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 rapidly evolving technologies, like C# and .NET, and the apps that you can build with them.

Topics covered by this book

The following topics are covered in this book:

• Language fundamentals: Fundamental features of the C# language, from declaring variables to writing functions and object-oriented programming.
• Library fundamentals: Fundamental features of the .NET base class library, as well as some important optional packages for common tasks like database access.
• Modern web development fundamentals: Modern features of the ASP.NET Core framework for server-side and client-side website and web service development. This includes Blazor and Minimal API web services and excludes controller-based features like MVC and Web API, or legacy features like Razor Pages.

This book, C# 14 and .NET 10 – Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals, is best read linearly, chapter by chapter, because it builds up fundamental skills and knowledge.

Now that you know what this book covers, let’s review what the other three books in the quartet cover.

Topics covered by Real-World Web Development with .NET 10

The following topics are available in a companion book, Real-World Web Development with .NET 10:

• ASP.NET Core MVC: Build websites using a mature and proven Model-View-Controller architecture pattern
• ASP.NET Core Web API: Build web services using controllers
• OData and FastEndpoints: Build web services using specialized libraries
• Testing and Containerization: Test web user interfaces and containerize your web projects ready for deployment
• Umbraco CMS: Build websites with content managed by end users

The first half of this book should be read linearly, and the second half can be read more like a cookbook, so if you are especially interested in building web services using FastEndpoints, then you can read that chapter without the preceding chapters about ASP.NET Core OData web services.

Topics covered by Apps and Services with .NET 10

The following topics are available in a companion book, Apps and Services with .NET 10:

• User interfaces: Avalonia for desktop apps, Blazor for web apps, and .NET MAUI for mobile apps
• Specialized libraries: Dates, times, time zones, and internationalization; common third-party libraries for image handling, logging, mapping, and generating PDFs; and many more
• Data: SQL Server, ADO.NET, Dapper, and EF Core
• Services: Caching, queuing, background services, gRPC, GraphQL, SignalR, and Minimal API web services

This book can be read like a cookbook, so if you are especially interested in building gRPC services, then you can read that chapter without the preceding chapters about ASP.NET Core Minimal API web services.

Topics covered by Tools and Skills for .NET 10

The following topics are available in a companion book, Tools and Skills for .NET 10:

• Mastering the features of your code editor, Visual Studio or VS Code
• Source code control with Git
• Debugging and memory analysis
• Cryptography, multitasking and concurrency
• All the important types of testing, from unit and integration to performance and web UI testing
• Docker and Aspire for local distributed development and testing
• Design patterns and solution architecture
• Preparing for an interview to get the .NET developer career that you want

This book can be read like a cookbook.

Shared content across all my books

I use my personal GitHub repository to store shared content that is relevant to all my books. Useful sections include the following:

• FAQs: https://github.com/markjprice/markjprice/blob/main/FAQs.md
• Articles: https://github.com/markjprice/markjprice/blob/main/articles/README.md

For example, now that Rider is free for non-commercial use, its popularity has grown more than VS Code, as shown at the following link:

https://github.com/markjprice/markjprice/blob/main/articles/surveys.md#net-developers-community-on-linkedin.

So, in this 10th edition, I have streamlined this book by moving most VS Code content online and focusing on Visual Studio, which is by far still the most popular IDE for .NET developers, especially beginners.

Finding all my books

To see a list of all the books I have published with Packt, you can use the following link:

https://subscription.packtpub.com/search?query=mark+j.+price.

A similar list is available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Mark-J-Price/e/B071DW3QGN/.

You can search other book-selling sites for my books, too.