Outline of the C sharp programming language

Short description: 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.^[1]^[2]^[3]

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#

Anders Hejlsberg — lead architect and creator of C#
Microsoft — developer and maintainer of C#
2000 — C# first appeared as part of .NET Framework development^[4]
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^[5]

General C# concepts

Issues / Limitations

Garbage collection overhead^[40]
Platform dependencies ^[41]

C# toolchain

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.^[42]

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#^[43]

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^[44]

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

Competitive programming

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

References

External links

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Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline of the C sharp programming language. Read more

[1] "C# Guide - .NET managed language". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/.

[2] ttps://www.geeksforgeeks.org/csharp-programming-language-introduction/ ^{[yes|permanent dead link|dead link}}]}

[3] "C# - a modern, open-source programming language | .NET". https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/languages/csharp.

[4] "Introduction - C# language specification". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/language-specification/introduction.

[5] "The history of C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/whats-new/csharp-version-history.

[6] "Assemblies in .NET - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/assembly/.

[7] "Attributes - C# language specification". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/language-specification/attributes.

[8] "Async and Await in C#". August 1, 2022. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-sharp/async-and-await-in-c-sharp/.

[9] "Asynchronous programming - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/asynchronous-programming/.

[10] "Classes and objects tutorial - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/tutorials/classes.

[11] "Collections - C# reference". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/builtin-types/collections.

[12] "Work with delegate types in C# - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/delegates/.

[13] "Encapsulation in C#". October 15, 2018. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-sharp/encapsulation-in-c-sharp/.

[14] "Events - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/events/.

[15] "Exception Handling - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/exceptions/exception-handling.

[16] ".NET garbage collection - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/garbage-collection/.

[17] "Garbage Collection in C# | .NET Framework". April 17, 2019. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-sharp/garbage-collection-in-c-sharp-dot-net-framework/.

[18] "C# generics (With Examples)". https://www.programiz.com/csharp-programming/generics.

[19] "Generic classes and methods - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/types/generics.

[20] "Tutorial: Introduction to Inheritance - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/tutorials/inheritance.

[21] "Interfaces - define behavior for multiple types - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/types/interfaces.

[22] "Lambda Expressions in C#". September 20, 2019. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-sharp/lambda-expressions-in-c-sharp/.

[23] "Language Integrated Query (LINQ) - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/linq/.

[24] "C# Memory Management". September 19, 2025. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-sharp/c-memory-management/.

[25] "Memory management and patterns in ASP.NET Core". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/performance/memory?view=aspnetcore-9.0.

[26] "Namespaces - C# language specification". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/language-specification/namespaces.

[27] "Nullable reference types - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/nullable-references.

[28] "Operator overloading - Define unary, arithmetic, equality, and comparison operators. - C# reference". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/operators/operator-overloading.

[29] "Pattern matching overview - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/functional/pattern-matching.

[30] "Properties - C#". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/properties.

[31] "Records - C# reference". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/builtin-types/record.

[32] "Reflection in .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fundamentals/reflection/reflection.

[33] "Serialization - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/.

[34] "Structs - C# language specification". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/language-specification/structs.

[35] "Using threads and threading - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/threading/using-threads-and-threading.

[36] "Task-based asynchronous programming - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/parallel-programming/task-based-asynchronous-programming.

[37] Chand, Mahesh. "Type Inference in C#". https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/mahesh/type-inference-in-c-sharp/.

[38] Kumar, Ravi Ranjan. "A Basic Introduction To C# Unit Test For Beginners". https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/a-basic-introduction-of-unit-test-for-beginners/.

[39] "Reference types - C# reference". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/keywords/reference-types.

[40] "Garbage Collection and Performance - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/garbage-collection/performance.

[41] "Dependency loading - .NET". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/dependency-loading/overview.

[42] ".NET CLI". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/.

[43] "Home | BenchmarkDotNet". https://benchmarkdotnet.org/.

[44] "Top C# Books recommended by experts - MentorCruise". https://mentorcruise.com/books/csharp/.

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Outline of the C sharp programming language

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Contents

What type of language is C#?

History of C#

General C# concepts

Issues / Limitations