Back in November, Microsoft launched .NET 7 in general availability. As all users enjoy the newest full version of the software framework, Microsoft can move into full development of its successor. And here we are, with the first preview of .NET 8 now available. Microsoft has released .NET 8 Preview 1 for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
This is the first preview release of Microsoft's next long-term support (LTS) version of the framework. The company says that it plans to release new previews and candidate builds for .NET 8 every month.
Jeremy Likness, the Principal Program Manager for .NET, says that the latest version is built on teamwork within Microsoft, “.NET 8 Preview 1 is a testament to the power of collaboration between a diverse team of engineers at Microsoft and a highly engaged open source community.”
A full wide-release launch of .NET 8 will come at the .NET Conf 2023 in November. As always, plenty of new features will be making their way to the next version, and they will be available in preview builds over the months.
New Features
.NET 8 Preview 1 already includes some of those tools, which Microsoft details in its announcement:
- “Native Ahead-of-Time (AOT) – The first of these features were shipped with .NET 7 last year, however there will be more refinements to this platform, with it coming to macOS for the first time, as part of .NET 8. The main focus of the .NET team is to refine some fundamentals such as size, an example being a “Hello, World” app that has been published with Native AOT being half the size when using .NET 8 Preview 1 in comparison to .NET 7.
- .NET Container images – Preview 1 includes improvements to how container images can be used for .NET applications, including updating the default Linux distro to Debian 12 (Bookworm). It also includes a tagging change (using 8.0-preview and not 8.0 which will start with Release Candidates), and the ability for container images to be non-root user capable.”
If you want to get on board with .NET 8, Preview 1 is available here.
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