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 runtime environment.

What type of language is C#?

• 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 environment (.NET runtime) that handles memory management via garbage collection
• Object-oriented programming language

History of C#

See also: History of C#

• Anders Hejlsberg — lead architect and creator of C#
• Microsoft — developer and maintainer of C#
• 2000 — C# first appeared as part of .NET Framework development
• 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 properties

General C# concepts

See also: C Sharp syntax

• Assemblies
• Attributes
• Async/await
• Asynchronous programming
• Classes and objects
• Collections
• Delegates
• Encapsulation
• Events
• Exception handling
• Garbage collection
• Generics
• Inheritance
• Interfaces
• Lambdas
• Language Integrated Query
• Memory management
• Namespaces
• Nullable type
• Operator overloading
• Pattern matching
• Properties
• Records
• Reflection
• Serialization
• Structs
• Threads and tasks
• Type inference
• Unit testing
• Value type and reference type

Issues / Limitations

• Garbage collection overhead
• Platform dependencies

C# toolchain

See also: List of Visual Basic .NET software and tools

Compilers

See also: List of C# compilers

• 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

Build and package management

• 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.

C# libraries and frameworks

• .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

Testing and benchmarking

• 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#

Notable projects written in C#

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

Example source code

• Articles with example C# code

C# publications

Books about C#

• 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 Book

C# dialects and related languages

• 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#

C# learning resources

See also: List of online integrated development environments

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

Competitive programming

See also: List of online competitive programming platforms

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

See also

• Comparison of C Sharp and Java
• Outline of computer programming
• Outline of software
• Outline of software engineering

Outlines of other programming languages

• Outline of the C programming language
• Outline of the C++ programming language
• Outline of the Java programming language
• Outline of the JavaScript programming language
• Outline of the Perl programming language
• Outline of the Python programming language
• Outline of the Rust programming language

External links

• Official C# documentation
• Roslyn compiler GitHub repository
• Official .NET website