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Microsoft .NET 8 Approaches Completion

Microsoft recently shared details about the last penultimate update before the official release of its latest developer platform, expected to debut in November.

The forthcoming version of Microsoft’s coding platform, .NET 8, has transitioned to its second-to-last update, setting the stage for a public launch next month.

Announced on October 10th, enthusiasts can now access .NET 8 RC 2 on Microsoft’s .NET site, compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac systems. As the follow-up to .NET 7, introduced in November of the previous year, the new .NET 8 promises three years of support.

[ Featured on InfoWorld: A look into the crucial upgrades in .NET 8 ] The recent RC 2 offers an array of enhancements, including polished performance and UI tweaks, especially in the .NET MAUI framework, as well as refined features for the Entity Framework. Among the new features in .NET 8, developers can anticipate advanced functionalities from AOT compilation to augmented JSON processing and optimized garbage management.

Key upgrades in .NET 8 encompass:

  • Enhanced System.Text.Json processes with expanded type support, new APIs, and further refinements.
  • The garbage management system now allows dynamic memory cap adjustments, especially valuable for cloud-based applications with variable demands.
  • An innovative source generator has been introduced, providing an AOT compilation alternative in ASP.NET Core, bypassing the traditional reflection mechanism.
  • Introducing new data types like Text.CompositeFormat for streamlining format strings determined at runtime.
  • In the reflection domain, a System.Type entity grants access to intricate function pointer details, currently exclusive to the CoreCLR runtime and MetadataLoadContext.
  • Extended SIMD capabilities have been rolled out, incorporating Vector512<T> and Intel’s AVX-512 support.
  • In the realm of cryptography, .NET 8 incorporates the SHA-3 hash functions.
  • An HTTPS-enabled HTTP client ensures an encrypted pathway between user and proxy, ensuring discreet request handling.
  • Enhanced directory functionalities allow for seamless file gathering and zipping, directly storing the zipped file into a designated stream.
  • Preliminary AOT support for platforms akin to iOS has been added.
  • The debut of ValidateOptionsResultBuilder aids in constructing a ValidateOptionsResult while accumulating various errors.
  • Notable tweaks have been made to .NET container templates, with optimized performance for container uploads, especially to Azure repositories.
  • A novel source generator aids in syncing with COM interfaces.
  • For Android application developers, the <AndroidStripILAfterAOT> attribute enables advanced AOT processing, shrinking app dimensions.