The Top New Features of .NET 6

Arjun Solanki's photo
Arjun Solanki
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5 min read

Microsoft .NET 6 is the pinnacle of the .NET unification that began with .NET 5. Cross-platform .NET 6 unifies the SDK and runtime for desktop, mobile, online and cloud applications by combining the .NET Core, .NET Framework and Xamarin/Mono technologies into a single .NET Framework.

On November 9, 2021, Microsoft made .NET 6 broadly accessible, along with C# 10 and Visual Studio 2022. .NET 6 provides considerable performance improvements over previous versions and an overall better development experience. In fact, .NET 6 is the fastest .NET version. It's also a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, which implies Microsoft will provide three years of support for .NET 6.

It goes without saying that you must comprehend the new .NET 6 features before you can fully utilise them. This article explores what's new in .NET 6 and what it means to be a C# 10 developer in the future. .NET 6.0 is available for download for Windows, Linux and macOS.

A .NET Platform that is Unified and Expanded

.NET 6 offers a unified platform for desktop, mobile, web, cloud and Internet of Things applications. The underlying platform supports a wide range of applications and makes it simple to reuse code across multiple applications. New capabilities and improvements have been added to ensure that code running in the cloud, on a desktop or on a mobile device acts consistently.

The .NET Multi-platform App UI is one of the most appealing features (.NET MAUI). In a single project, you can now build code that provides a modern client app experience across desktop and mobile operating systems with the assistance of a .NET development company.

What has changed in .NET 6?

Let's have a look at the new features and enhancements in.NET 6.

  • Enhanced Performance

Performance is significantly improved, especially for file I/O, resulting in reduced execution time, latency and memory usage. To increase the async file I/O speed, the FileStream class has been rewritten. The Windows implementation no longer employs blocking APIs, making it several times faster. The compiler for Just in Time (JIT) has been modified. There have also been advancements in the waste collector. Guid and string system types have been greatly enhanced.

  • Optimisation Based on Profiles

Profile-guided optimisation (PGO) is a compiler optimisation approach and a new feature introduced in .NET 6 that allows the JIT compiler to generate optimised code based on the most frequently used types and functions.

  • Support for Multiple Platforms

Microsoft's efforts to provide a uniform platform for .NET apps began with .NET 5. The goal was to provide a standardised platform for designing apps that could run on any device and operating system. As a result, all .NET 6 apps, whether web browser, desktop, cloud, IoT or mobile, use the same .NET libraries. Do you want to know more about this?

  • New APIs have been Introduced

HTTP/3, JSON, mathematics and other APIs have been added.

  • Enhancements to Security

Security has improved significantly, with support for the ChaCha20Poly1305 encryption scheme, OpenSSL and "defence in depth" runtime mitigations.

  • C# 10 and F# 6 Improvements

C# 10 includes significant enhancements such as new lambda capabilities, record structs and implicit utilising. F# 6 has also seen enhancements like pipeline debugging and task-based async.

  • JSON API Enhancements

JSON API enhancements add new functionality and improve efficiency. The system now has a new source generator. Text. Json has been introduced, which avoids the requirement for runtime reflection and code development by allowing appropriate serialisation code to be generated at build time.

  • Cloud Diagnostics Advancements

Cloud diagnostics have been improved with the addition of OpenTelemetry and dotnet-monitor, both of which are now in production and available through Azure App Service.

  • Code Quality Enhancements

To help you build better, safer and faster code, source generators and analysers have been included.

  • Hot Reload

One of the most noticeable new features in .NET 6 is Hot Reload. You can use this functionality to adjust the user interface while your program is running. The changes are reflected as soon as you save them; there is no need to restart the application. This feature significantly increases developer productivity.

  • Structs DateOnly and TimeOnly

This is a long-awaited .NET feature. You can now assign values to objects that are simply dates or times.

Async Streaming Support

Async streaming is now supported in .NET 6, thanks to IAsyncEnumerableT>, which allows you to stream data from the server without buffering.

A New Era of .NET Development has Begun

From a better, faster and more unified runtime to an improved developer experience, .NET 6 is the most significant release in the .NET ecosystem since .NET 4. .NET 6 is the fastest .NET, with a smaller footprint and lower resource consumption, as well as the most developer-friendly, with several language advancements and capabilities such as Hot Reload. Most importantly, .NET 6 significantly simplifies the building of cross-platform apps. It is a cross-platform framework that allows you to create native mobile and desktop applications for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows without having to manage numerous codebases for each platform.

Microsoft .NET 6 not only lays the groundwork for all future .NET platforms. It ushers in a new era of designing performant, modern-day apps in .NET for a variety of operating systems and architectures. With a unified platform, higher language maturity and enhanced developer tools, .NET 6 are well-positioned to be the default Microsoft development platform for many years to come. A well-reputed .NET development company will be able to assist you in knowing the new features of .NET 6 in more detail.

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