Outline of the C sharp programming language

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to C#:

C# (pronounced “C-sharp”) is a free and open-source multi-paradigm programming language developed by Microsoft as part of its .NET initiative. C# was designed by Anders Hejlsberg and first appeared in 2000 with the release of .NET Framework. The language emphasizes type safety, component-oriented programming, and modern object-oriented programming concepts. C# syntax is similar to C++ and Java, but is tightly integrated with the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR) environment.¹²³

• Programming language – artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a computer
• Compiled language – compiled to Common Intermediate Language and executed by the Common Language Runtime
• General-purpose programming language
• Imperative programming – paradigm using statements that change program state, focusing on how to perform computation.
• Functional programming – treating computation as evaluation of functions, avoiding mutable state, focusing on what to compute.
• Component-oriented programming – reusable components with well-defined interfaces for modularity and code reuse.
• Statically typed programming language – type checking performed at compile time
• Managed code – runs in a virtual machine (VM) environment, the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), that handles memory management via garbage collection
• Object-oriented programming language

• Anders Hejlsberg – lead architect and creator of C#
• Microsoft – developer and maintainer of C#
• 2000 – C# first appeared as part of .NET Framework development⁴
• 2002 – C# 1.0 released with Visual Studio .NET
• 2007 – C# 3.0 added LINQ, lambda expressions, and extension methods
• 2012 – C# 5.0 added async and await and caller info attributes
• 2015 – C# 6.0 added expression-bodied members, string interpolation, and Roslyn.
• 2014 – .NET Core introduced as an open-source and cross-platform implementation
• 2020 – .NET 5 unified .NET Framework and .NET Core
• 2024 – C# 13 added params collections and partial properties⁵

• Garbage collection overhead⁴⁰
• Platform dependencies⁴¹

• Roslyn – open-source compiler platform for C# and VB.NET
• Mono – cross-platform implementation of C# and .NET
• Bartok – experimental AOT compiler by Microsoft Research
• CoreRT – .NET Foundation project for AOT and JIT compilation
• IL2CPU – AOT compiler used by the COSMOS operating system
• RemObjects C# – AOT compiler supporting multiple platforms
• RyuJIT – JIT compiler used in .NET Core and .NET 5+
• SharpDevelop – open-source IDE and C# compiler under LGPL
• Visual C# – Microsoft’s primary JIT compiler for C#
• Visual C# Express – freeware edition of Visual C# for beginners
• Portable.NET – discontinued AOT compiler from the DotGNU project

• MSBuild – Microsoft’s official build engine
• NuGet – official .NET package manager and registry
• dotnet CLI – command-line interface for building, running, and publishing C# applications.⁴²

• .NET Standard – specification ensuring API compatibility across .NET implementations
• ASP.NET Core – framework for building web applications and APIs
• Entity Framework Core – object-relational mapper (ORM)
• Xamarin – framework for building cross-platform mobile applications
• Blazor – framework for building interactive web UIs with C#
• Unity – game engine using C# as its primary scripting language

• xUnit – popular open-source testing framework
• NUnit – testing framework for .NET
• MSTest – Microsoft’s built-in test framework
• BenchmarkDotNet – library for performance benchmarking in C#⁴³

• Unity
• VS Code extensions
• Godot with C# scripting support
• Microsoft Office add-ins
• Visual Studio Tools for Office

• Articles with example C# code

• Andrew Troelsen – Pro C# and the .NET Platform
• Bill Wagner – Effective C#
• Herbert Schildt – C#: A Beginner's Guide and C# 4.0: The Complete Reference
• Jeff Prosise – Programming Microsoft .NET
• Jeffrey Richter – CLR via C#
• Jennifer Greene – Head First C#
• Jon Skeet – C# in Depth
• Mark J. Price – C# 12 and .NET 8 – Modern Cross-Platform Development
• Rob Miles – The C# Programming Yellow Book⁴⁴

• Visual Basic .NET – shares the same runtime and type system
• F# – functional-first language on the .NET platform
• PowerShell – built on .NET and C#
• Q# – quantum programming language from Microsoft influenced by C#

• Introduction to C#
• Official Microsoft C# documentation
• C# overview page
• W3Schools – C# tutorials
• GeeksforGeeks – C# basics

• LeetCode – supports C# submissions
• HackerRank – includes C# challenges
• Codeforces – supports C# in contests