It's coming! Microsoft have announced that .NET Core 3 will be officially launched at .NET Conf 2019. According to it's website, .NET Conf 2019 is free, three day virtual developer event organised by Microsoft. The event is happening between 23rd and 25th September 2019.
So What's New with .NET Core 3?
If you read one of my earlier blog articles, .NET Core 2.2 and earlier versions do not support Windows Forms or Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). .NET Core 3 will change that as they will be supported.
According to Microsoft's website, it will have support for C# version 8 which is the C# version that is supported in Microsoft Visual Studio 2019. C# version 8 has a number of changes, with a lot seemingly focusing on writing existing functionality with shorthand code. C# version 8's new functionality can be found on the Microsoft website.
It also has support for all the existing features on .NET Core, like the use of NuGet packages etc.
You can use .NET Core 3 now!
Since December 2018, Microsoft have been releasing .NET Core 3 preview versions for developers to use. With each preview, it has been releasing new features for developers to test.
Preview 7 was launched back on 23rd July and the first preview to be production ready! This means that Microsoft have stopped adding new features, and polishing the release. Another Preview (Preview 8) was launched on 13th August. It is not known if any more previews will be launched prior to the .NET Conf event.
Should I start using it now?
If you had asked that question a few months back, I would say it would have been dependent on your situation. If you were expecting to launch your application imminently, it wouldn't have been a great idea.
However, now that we have a launch date and a version ready for deployment, I would certainly recommend it. This is particular if you are starting a new application from scratch.
One thing to bare in mind is that .NET Core 3 is only supported in Visual Studio 2019. I don't believe that you can get a version of VS 2019 on the same license, so will require a new license.
It may be possible to run .NET Core 3 in earlier versions of Visual Studio, but that's not something I've tried to do.
How easy is it to upgrade from .NET Core 2.2?
Very good question. I don't know. That will be a trial and error for yourself. As mentioned in my previous blog post, there are some interfaces in the Startup.cs file that have changed. These have become depreciated in .NET Core 3 and will be removed in later versions.
How do I download .NET Core 3?
You can download any of the eight versions released from the .NET Core 3 website. You should be able to download the production version from the same source in the next few weeks.
