Latest release of .NET 8.0.0

Introduction

.NET 8.0.0 is the latest version of the .NET platform, a free, cross-platform, open-source developer platform for building many different types of applications. .NET 8.0.0 was released on November 14, 2023, and it brings many new features and improvements to the .NET ecosystem. Some of the highlights of .NET 8.0.0 are:

Unparalleled performance

NET 8.0.0 delivers thousands of performance, stability, and security improvements across the stack. A new code generator called Dynamic Profile-Guided Optimisation (PGO) that optimizes your code based on real-world usage is enabled by default and can improve the performance of your apps up to 20%. The AVX-512 instruction set, which is now supported, enables you to perform parallel operations on 512-bit vectors of data, meaning you can process much more data in less time. The primitive types (numerical and beyond) now implement a new formattable and parsable interface, which enable them to directly format and parse as UTF-8 without any transcoding overhead.

.NET Aspire

NET Aspire is a new, simplified stack for building resilient, observable, and configurable cloud-native applications with .NET. It includes a set of proven libraries that are used today by the many high-scale services at Microsoft to help you with fundamental challenges around observability, resiliency, scalability, manageability, and more. With .NET Aspire, you can build distributed applications that run on Linux or Windows, using containers or a cloud app model of your choice.

ASP.NET Core enhancements

ASP.NET Core is a modern web framework for building cloud-based internet connected applications. ASP.NET Core 8.0.0 introduces many new features and improvements, such as Minimal APIs, which enable you to create web APIs with minimal boilerplate code and configuration. ASP.NET Core 8.0.0 also supports Hot Reload, which allows you to make changes to your code while the app is running and see the results immediately, without restarting the app or losing the app state.

.NET MAUI platform and stability improvements

.NET MAUI is a cross-platform framework for building native mobile and desktop applications with .NET. .NET MAUI 8.0.0 is the first stable release of .NET MAUI, and it supports Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. .NET MAUI 8.0.0 offers a single project structure, a unified app model, and a consistent API for all platforms. .NET MAUI 8.0.0 also integrates with Visual Studio 2022, which provides a rich development experience with features like XAML Hot Reload, XAML IntelliSense, and Live Visual Tree.

Language support

.NET 8.0.0 supports the latest versions of C#, F#, and Visual Basic. C# 12.0 introduces new features such as record structs, global using directives, file-scoped namespaces, and extended property patterns. F# 8.0 adds new features such as anonymous records, interpolated strings, name of expressions, and improved tooling. Visual Basic 16.9 adds support for implicit and explicit line continuations, and improves the compatibility with C#.