Microsoft Releases .NET Core 3.0

As promised, Microsoft today released .NET Core 3.0 with new versions of ASP.NET, EFC Core 3.0, C# 8.0, F# 4.7, and Visual Studio.
“We’re excited to announce the release of .NET Core 3.0,” Microsoft’s Richard Lander announced. “It includes many improvements, including adding [support for] Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), adding new JSON APIs, support for ARM64 and improving performance across the board. C# 8.0 is also part of this release, which includes nullable, async streams, and more patterns. F# 4.7 is included, and focused on relaxing syntax and targeting .NET Standard 2.0. You can start updating existing projects to target .NET Core 3.0 today. The release is compatible with previous versions, making updating easy.”
Oof. That’s a lot of stuff. And ASP.NET Core 3.0 and EF Core 3.0 are also being released today, along with Visual Studio 2019 16.3 and Visual Studio for Mac 8.3.
To me, the big news here is support for Windows desktop applications via WinForms and WPF: These once-deprecated frameworks have been given new life thanks to the failure of UWP and are once again first-class citizens. But .NET Core 3.0 is big news whether you target the web, mobile, or web services too.
And if you want to learn more, be sure to check out Microsoft’s new video series.