Mikael Olsson - C# 10 Quick Syntax Reference: A Pocket Guide to the Language, APIs, and Library

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The C# programming language is an object-oriented language created by Microsoft for .NET. C# (pronounced see sharp) builds on some of the best features of the major programming languages. It combines the power of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic and also borrows much from Java. This results in a language that is easy to learn and use, robust against errors, and enables rapid application development. All this is achieved without sacrificing much of the power or speed, when compared to C++.

In the years following its release in 2002, C# has grown to become one of the most popular programming languages. It is a general-purpose programming language, so it is useful for creating a wide range of programs. Everything from small utilities to computer games, desktop applications, or even operating systems can be built in C#. The language can also be used with ASP.NET to create web-based applications.

When developing in .NET, programmers are given a wide range of choices as to which programming language to use. Some of the more popular .NET languages include VB.NET, C++/CLI, F#, and C#. Among these, C# is often the language of choice. Like the other .NET languages, C# is initially compiled to an intermediate language. This language is called the Common Intermediate Language (CIL) and is run on .NET. A .NET program will therefore be able to execute on any system that has this framework installed.

.NET is a software framework that includes a common execution engine and a rich class library. It is cross-platform and can be installed on Windows, Linux,

To begin coding in C#, you need an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports .NET. The most popular choice is Microsofts own Visual Studio.

The C# language has undergone a number of updates since the initial release of C# 1.0 in 2002. At the time of writing, C# 10 is the current version and was released in 2021. Each version of the language corresponds to a version of Visual Studio, so in order to use the features of C# 10, you need Visual Studio 2022 (version 17.0 or higher). When installing Visual Studio, be sure to select the .NET desktop development workload in order to be able to develop with C#.

After installing the IDE, go ahead and launch it. You then need to create a new project, which will manage the C# source files and other resources. To display the new project window, go to File New Project in Visual Studio. From there, select the C# Console App (.NET Framework) template and click the Next button. Configure the name and location of the project if you want to and then click the Next button again. On this last page, make sure the latest version of .NET is selected. To use the features of C# 10, the project needs to target .NET 6.0 or later. Then click Create to allow the project wizard to create your project.

The application now consists of a class called MyApp containing an empty Main method, both delimited by curly brackets. The Main method is the entry point of the program and must have this format. The casing is also important since C# is case-sensitive. The curly brackets delimit what belongs to a code entity, such as a class or method, and they must be included. The brackets, along with their content, are referred to as code blocks, or just blocks.