What’s new in .NET 8?
.NET 8 brings another number of innovations. One of them is the ability to compile a ASP.NET Core application in AOT (ahead-of-time) mode. In this regime, however, forget about MVC, Blazor or SignalR right away. On the other hand, you will be rewarded with an application that will be smaller, take up less memory and start significantly faster. In addition, .NET 8 also brings the ability to easily generate random strings. And C# is not on the sidelines either, as its 12th version fundamentally simplifies class notation. Read more ›
What’s new in .NET 7?
Although .NET 7 brings another number of innovations, this time the main emphasis was on performance. ASP.NET contains rate limiter, so we can usually do without the web.config file. The 11th version of C# brings better work with strings. And one feature that was previously only available in UWP and Mono – compilation in AOT mode (ahead-of-time) – is now available for the entire framework. Read more ›
Advanced features of Azure Storage
Azure Storage offers many useful features and services that make integration into existing systems easier. New solutions can take advantage of these features on an architectural level. Knowing which common patterns are natively supported by Azure Storage can radically accelerate development. Here is an overview of them. Read more ›
What’s new in .NET 6?
.NET 6 completes the alignment with mobile and desktop development. It introduces the so-called Target framework moniker (TFM), which specifies that the project targets a specific SDK. For example, iOS targeting is written as net6.0-ios. Previously, TFM described a specific version. NET or its clone modified for a specific platform. But that is changing now. All platforms share a single .NET and the specific platform-specific API that is accessible through the SDK is listed after the dash. Read more ›
UWP will become WinUI 3, surpassing WPF and WinRT
The latest and greatest technology, according to Microsoft’s marketing statements, is the Universal Windows Platform. The reason for this was the need for a single runtime for mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. Until recently. Surface Duo will stick with Android, and Windows development is experiencing a rollback. Current UWP apps will no longer be eligible for distribution via the Microsoft Store. Only those based on the Windows App SDK will see the green light. Read more ›
What’s new in .NET 5?
.NET 5.0 is here. It is a successor to .NET Framework 4.8 and .NET Core 3.1. This means that Console, Windows Forms, and WPF apps can now be packaged with their own runtime. While it was always possible to embed the .NET Runtime installer into the application installer itself, the new approach means that multiple apps do not share and therefore do not depend on a single .NET Runtime. You can develop on the latest bits without affecting others. The implications are huge. Read more ›
How to sign electronically?
Authorities are not in the habit of publishing information by putting it on their websites, but by putting it printed on paper on the front door. It can easily happen that you can find out on the website when the office is open, and when you get there, you find out that it is closed. It is therefore more practical to submit and sign documents electronically. Technically, it is quite complicated, and as is usually the case, even more complicated in the state version. Read more ›
How C# Nullable Reference Types Affects your ASP.NET Core Routing
I thought that the new C# 8.0 feature – non-nullable reference types – was just an IntelliSense feature powered by Roslyn that prevents null reference exceptions. I was wrong. It may affect how your application works in many ways. More specifically, everything that uses reflection can start behaving differently. This includes ASP.NET Core routing. Some bindings can stop working when no additional code changes are applied. Read more ›
Blazor is .NET in a Web Browser. What Makes it Possible?
The most powerful, performant, and easy-to-use UI framework is HTML with CSS and JavaScript. DirectX has an extremely high development cost, and UWP is missing many features that are standard in CSS. The Achilles' heel of pure web development is JavaScript. When you use a higher-level language compiled to JavaScript, one question arises: is JavaScript an efficient intermediate language? The answer is no, and the result is a web bytecode called WebAssembly. Read more ›
Browsers Will Freeze its User-Agent Strings
The User-Agent HTTP header was introduced in 1993 by the first web browser. The string was as simple as Mosaic/0.9. It could be used for good purposes. Web servers can serve slightly different content to browsers that might implement new standards differently. Sadly, Google is abusing its dominant position by blocking or malfunctioning its services for competitive browsers. Therefore, a new mechanism for declaring the technical aspects of a user’s device is emerging. Read more ›
Host ASP.NET Core on Oracle Autonomous Linux with Nginx
This article is a step-by-step manual explaining how to create and configure an Oracle Autonomous Linux virtual machine for hosting an ASP.NET Core 3.1 web application. We will connect to the Linux machine from a Windows workstation using PowerShell. The application will be created and compiled in Visual Studio. The application is self-contained, so the installation of the .NET Core runtime is not necessary. Read more ›
An Alternative to Let’s Encrypt for Azure Web Apps
Configuring Let’s Encrypt certificates for Azure Web Apps was always a pain. One would expect a simple single-click solution. It took four years until Microsoft delivered this feature. It is named App Service Managed Certificates, and it will issue a certificate for your custom domains at no cost. This feature is available for customers with a Basic App Service Plan and above. Naked domains or wildcards are not supported. Read more ›