Chapter 1, New Features in C# 7.0, shows how C# 7.0 brings a lot of new functionality to the C# language. The biggest of these features by far are Tuples and pattern matching. Getting to grips with what’s new in C# 7.0 is essential for developers in order to stay on top of their game.
Chapter 2, Classes and Generics, form the building blocks of software development and are essential in building good code. The power of classes, which is to describe the world around us and translate it into a programming language that a compiler can understand, allows developers to create great software.
Chapter 3, Object-Oriented Programming in C#, is the foundation of C# and object-oriented programming (OOP). Understanding this concept is essential to .NET developers everywhere.
Chapter 4, Code Analyzers in Visual Studio, talks about how code analyzers help developers to write better code. Be sure that the code you or your team ships measures up to your specific set of code quality standards.
Chapter 5, Regular Expressions, is about how regex make use of patterns that describe a string through the use of special characters that denote a specific bit of text to match. The use of regex, when applied properly, can be a very powerful approach to certain programming problems.
Chapter 6, Working with Files, Streams, and Serialization, teaches the readers that working with files, streams, and serialization is something you as a developer will do many times. Being able to do so correctly will definitely give you an edge as a developer.
Chapter 7, Making Apps Responsive with Asynchronous Programming, talks about how asynchronous programming is an exciting feature in C#. It allows you to continue program execution on the main thread while a long-running task finishes its execution. This enables your applications to remain responsive.
Chapter 8, High Performance Programming Using Parallel and Multithreading in C#, improves your code's performance. Using multithreading and parallel programming can mean the difference between users experiencing an application as working or broken.
Chapter 9, Composing Event-Based Programs Using Reactive Extensions, teaches the reader how Rx is an exciting technology. If you need to create search-as-you-type functionality in an application, have data that changes notify your application instead of having to poll the data all the time (think stock prices), or generally make your app more responsive, the chances are you need to consider using Rx.
Chapter 10, Exploring .NET Core 1.1, is about the buzz regarding .NET Core these days. It allows you to create cross-platform applications that run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Knowing how to use it is essential for all .NET developers.
Chapter 11, ASP.NET Core on the MVC Framework, talks about the MVC framework, which is named according to the MVC design pattern it follows. It allows developers to separate the logic by letting each component of the framework focus on one specific thing. It is this separation of concerns that makes MVC so powerful, especially when combined with .NET Core.
Chapter 12, Choosing and Using a Source Control Strategy, is about how source control is an essential part of every developer's toolkit. It doesn't matter whether you are a hobbyist or professional programmer; when you get up from your desk to go home, you'd better be sure your code is safe.
Chapter 13, Creating a Mobile Application in Visual Studio, allows developers to create mobile applications with ease. It also gives developers more choice about how to go about doing it. From creating a mobile app with Xamarin, to using Cordova, to writing native iOS applications with Visual Studio for Mac, .NET developers can expand their service offering using the IDE they know and love.
Chapter 14, Writing Secure Code and Debugging in Visual Studio, talks about how debugging is something developers do more often than not. Being able to do so efficiently is a different story. In a similar way, being able to write secure code is essential to any developer. Creating secure code and being able to efficiently debug that code properly results in a better end product.
Chapter 15, Creating Microservices on Azure Service Fabric, is about how, traditionally, developers wrote applications in a monolithic manner, which is one single executable broken up into components via classes and so on. Microservices is a technology that aims to address the issues surrounding traditional monolithic applications. It allows developers to create smaller bits (services) that can function on their own without being dependent on any of the other services.
Chapter 16, Azure and Serverless Computing, is about how serverless does not mean the lack of a server, but rather you (or the application) does not know which server is used to provide some functionality to an application. Splitting some of your application logic into a serverless-type architecture allows for extreme scalability when loads increase (or decrease), increased performance, and less code to write and debug.