You have patiently read the previous chapters, understood what you will be learning about by reading this book, and prepared your developer machine. Now, you are ready to create your first sample application.

Follow these instructions to create your first ASP.NET Core 3 sample web application:

1. If you haven't installed the .NET Core 3 SDK yet, then download and install .NET Core 3 from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/3.0.

2. Start Visual Studio 2019. You will be presented with a page that allows you to clone or checkout code or open an existing project. Here, we are interested in creating a new project:

3. The same Create a new project page pops up if you click on Create a new project or Continue without code and then File | New | Project:

Select ASP.NET Core Web Application and click Next.

4. After selecting a project template, that is, Visual C# | .NET Core | ASP.NET Core Web Application (.NET Core), and clicking Next, you can name your project and configure its location:

5. You are now able to select your specific web application type, which is the ASP.NET Core version. Please note that, if we select ASP.NET Core 3.0, then we only have .NET Core available on the left, but for all the others, we also have .NET Framework available for selection as well. Scroll down and select Web Application and leave the Enable Docker Support, and Configure for HTTPS options unchecked. Also, leave Authentication set to No Authentication: 

6. After the sample application project has been generated, a project start page will be displayed. Here, you can configure additional options, such as connected services (Application Insights, and more) and publishing targets (Microsoft Azure App Services, IIS, FTP, Folder, and more). Leave everything unchanged: 

7. Now, you can start your application by pressing F5 or clicking on Debug | Start Debugging.