Sands of MAUI: Issue #119

Welcome to the Sands of MAUI—newsletter-style issues dedicated to bringing together latest .NET MAUI content relevant to developers.

A particle of sand—tiny and innocuous. But put a lot of sand particles together and we have something big—a force to reckon with. It is the smallest grains of sand that often add up to form massive beaches, dunes and deserts.

Most .NET developers are excited with .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI)—the evolution of modern .NET cross-platform developer experience. Going forward, developers will be empowered with the .NET MAUI technology stack and stable tooling to build native cross-platform apps for mobile/desktop from single shared codebase.

While it may take a long flight to reach the sands of MAUI island, developer excitement around .NET MAUI is quite palpable with all the created content. Like the grains of sand, every piece of news/article/documentation/video/tutorial/livestream contributes towards developer knowledge in .NET MAUI and we grow a community/ecosystem willing to learn and help.

Sands of MAUI is a humble attempt to collect all the .NET MAUI awesomeness in one place. Here's what is noteworthy for the week of October 2, 2023:

.NET MAUI for .NET 8

The next milestone in the evolution of .NET is coming up soon—.NET 8 has been cooking and is scheduled to hit prime time in November 2023. The latest .NET 8 bits are out—.NET 8 has reached Release Candidate 1 status. Along with the latest .NET 8 release come hot new bits for .NET MAUI and James Montemagno produced a video—everything to know about .NET MAUI in .NET 8.

The latest .NET MAUI release for .NET 8 now carries a go live license—developers should have the confidence to use the release bits for production applications. The dominant theme of .NET MAUI work in .NET 8 is code quality—increased stability can be seen everywhere from framework to platform implementations, all with better tooling.

James talked through all the enhancements in .NET MAUI for .NET 8, like memory leak resolutions, desktop keyboard support improvements, UI control functionality, native AOT for iOS and experimental HybridWebView—all contributing towards smoother app performance and better user experience. James walked through how developers can get started using .NET MAUI for .NET 8 and covered some of differences in templated projects, along with advice for upgrading existing projects to .NET 8.

It's onwards and upwards for .NET MAUI until the .NET 8 milestone—cheers to modern .NET cross-platform development.

Beautiful UI with .NET MAUI

.NET MAUI is the evolution of modern .NET cross-platform development stack, allowing developers to reach mobile and desktop form factors from a single shared codebase. There is much to be excited about .NET MAUI—framework maturity, stable tooling and welcoming web developers.

Some of the folks who care a lot about .NET MAUI came together for a community-driven Twitch long stream named Paddle Boarding in MAUI, and Leomaris Reyes dropped by for a super interesting session—beautiful UI with .NET MAUI.

The goal of the Paddle Boarding in MAUI livestream was simple—to share knowledge, show off code/tooling, engage and learn together, while raising charitable donations for supporting Maui wildfire recovery. For modern .NET MAUI apps on mobile/desktop, UI is everything—it is the only way to have engaging user experiences.

Leomaris shared some invaluable tips for developers building UI for .NET MAUI—using right Layouts, code reuse with Resources and Styles, knowing the difference between Margin and Padding and using BindableLayouts. Advice is easy—putting practices to action is where rubber meets the road. Leomaris chose a real world social media screen and went on to recreate the entire UI inside a .NET MAUI view—all done live, showcasing beautiful UI is very doable if developers care.

Cheers, Leomaris, for the wise words and UI inspirations.

eBooks on Blazor & .NET MAUI

Blazor is the modern web development framework and .NET MAUI is the evolution of cross-platform development—both understandably popular for .NET developers. In fact, Blazor and .NET MAUI are enabling modern developer workflows and code reuse across platforms—essentially the pillars of innovation for modern .NET.

With .NET 8 around the corner, there are lots of framework enhancements and tooling improvements—naturally inviting developers to upgrade to modern runtimes. Modernizing big apps is not for the faint hearted though and thankfully there is some help from Telerik folks—say hello to latest free eBooks on Blazor and .NET MAUI.

The eBooks should provide plenty of guidance for developers contemplating modernization of .NET apps—Blazor and .NET MAUI can help share code, while moving codebases forward. The planning a Blazor app eBook by Ed Charbenau covers all-important topics for Blazor developers—like ASP.NET Core architecture, tooling, testing, CSS, accessibility and modern components for developer productivity. The migration to .NET MAUI eBook by Rossitza Fakalieva is a treasure trove for any developer plotting journey to .NET MAUI—be it from Xamarin.Forms/WPF or plain rewrite using .NET MAUI.

Modernization strategies should include benefit analysis, tooling help, migration concerns and lessons learnt—the new free eBooks should do plenty to provide confidence to developers.

C# Certification

Programming languages are the primary tools of expression for developers—they essentially provide the paint and brush with which developers can color the world with creativity. C# is the programming language of choice for majority of .NET developers—true for .NET MAUI, Blazor and most other development frameworks that run on modern .NET stack.

It never hurts to know language fundamentals and C# developers can have fresh bragging rights as Katie Savage announced—say hello to foundational C# certification with freeCodeCamp.

freeCodeCamp is a charity that creates free learning resources for math, programming and computer science. Partnered with freeCodeCamp, the new foundational C# certification is completely free, globally available and includes a full 35-hour C# training course hosted on Microsoft Learn.

Adding the C# certification to the developer portfolio demonstrates commitment to proficiency and continuous growth with C#—kind of an accelerator to one's C# career trajectory. There is additional help for developers on the foundational C# certification path—there are six office-hour style streaming events hosted by expert presenters to help developers succeed.

For the aspiring C# developer or a seasoned professional, the new foundational C# certification is a great way to showcase expertise—an enlightening journey to elevate one's tech career.

.NET Conf

The next big milestone for .NET is .NET 8. Like clockwork, developers can expect the latest runtime to be ready for primetime in November 2023—including tons of framework, tooling and performance updates. The annual .NET release also coincides with the biggest .NET developer virtual event of the year— .NET Conf is scheduled for November 14-16.

In its 13th edition, the always-online .NET Conf would look to create a world-class engaging virtual experience for all attendees—from .NET beginners to seasoned engineers alike.

Over the course of the three days, .NET Conf provides a wide selection of live sessions that feature speakers from the .NET team and developer community. With the third day being a 24/7 live stream, everyone can get involved no matter what be the time zone.

Developers can expect loads of announcements around all the enhancements with .NET, .NET MAUI, Blazor, containers, cloud and tooling updates—.NET Conf promises to be a good time as always, with an eye out for what the future looks like for .NET.

That's it for now.

We'll see you next week with more awesome content relevant to .NET MAUI.

Cheers, developers!