A Sneak Peek of .NET 8
Delving into .NET 8’s Speed and Efficiency Boosts
Set to launch in November 2023, .NET 8’s preview version already allows us to glimpse its forthcoming features and enhancements.
One of the highlights of .NET 8 is automated support for cloud-native applications. This means that .NET 8 makes it even easier to create applications that can run in containers, such as Docker and Kubernetes, and easily integrate with cloud services like Azure and AWS.
.NET 8 also brings many performance, reliability, and information security enhancements. Some of these improvements include:
- A new garbage collection (GC) mode that reduces memory usage and pauses for large object heap (LOH) allocations.
- A new source generator feature that allows code generation at compile time and reduces runtime overhead.
- A new feature that removes unused code from assemblies and reduces the application’s size.
- A new diagnostic tool that provides a comprehensive view of the application’s performance, memory, threads, exceptions, and events.
- A new security feature that allows automatic encryption and decryption of appsettings.json files.
- Improvements and performance in System.Text.Json
- Improvements and performance in .NET MAUI
- Improvements and performance in Blazor
- Improvements and performance in C# 12
- Improvements and performance in Output Caching
- Enhanced debugging
From enhanced performance and simplified web development to innovations in Blazor and .NET MAUI, .NET 8 promises to elevate your development experience to new heights, always focusing on reducing memory consumption and increasing application execution speed.
Testing
To test the new features of .NET 8, you need to install the latest version of the framework:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/8.0
Then open your Visual Studio 2022, go to Tools => Manage Preview Features, and select the “Use previews of the .NET SDK” option; restart your Visual Studio afterward.
Next, create an ASP.NET Core Web API project and select the .NET 8.0 framework.
Final Thoughts
These are just some of the new features of .NET 8, but there’s much more to explore. If you want to learn more about .NET 8 and test its features firsthand, you can download the preview versions on the official .NET website.
