Guide to the Language

About the Author
Mikael Olsson is a professional web entrepreneur, programmer, and 
author. He works for an R&D company in Finland, where he specializes 
in software development. In his spare time, he writes books and creates 
web sites that summarize various fields of interest. The books he writes 
are focused on teaching their subjects in the most efficient way possible, 
by explaining only what is relevant and practical without any unnecessary 
repetition or theory. The portal to his online businesses and other web 
sites is Siforia.com.

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About the Technical Reviewer
Michael Thomas has worked in software 
development for more than 20 years as an 
individual contributor, team lead, program 
manager, and vice president of engineering. 
Michael has more than 10 years of experience 
working with mobile devices. His current focus 
is in the medical sector, using mobile devices 
to accelerate information transfer between 
patients and health-care providers.

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Introduction
The C# programming language is an object-oriented language created by 
Microsoft for the .NET Framework. 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, is 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 the .NET 
Framework. A .NET program will therefore be able to execute on any 
system that has this framework installed.

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The .NET Framework is a software framework that includes a common 
execution engine and a rich class library. It runs on Microsoft Windows 
and is therefore only used for writing Windows applications. However, 
there are also cross-platform ports available, the two largest being Mono
1
and .NET Core.
2
 These are both open source projects that allow .NET 
applications to be run on other platforms, such as Linux, macOS, and 
embedded systems.
1
 www.mono-project.com
2
 https://docs.microsoft.com/dotnet/core
InTroduCTIon
InTroduCTIon

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© Mikael Olsson 2020 
M. Olsson, C# 8 Quick Syntax Reference, 
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5577-3_1