Reflections and predictions on how .NET will evolve in 2023 by Godel Technologies .NET Division.

What are the biggest trends in .NET have seen over the past year?

We saw the introduction of .NET 6 and frequent updates of .NET. Everything has become more fast-paced, and we are seeing new versions constantly instead of just 1 version once a year. We do almost anything on any platform with .NET now. It’s also been interesting to observe that it’s not just for windows-based heavy enterprises anymore. This year, there has slowly been added support for what was in the old .NET: Azure Durable Functions + isolated mode. We have begun to see customers ask more often to have some ready-made solutions than to do everything completely from scratch.

What must .NET engineers do to stay ahead of the curve?

– Develop both soft and hard skills: Hard skills are back and will be just as important as well as soft skills.

– Flexibility and agility are important: In terms of tools and approaches, be an engineer, not just a coder. In terms of work, make sure you are ready to do anything . E.g., do not expect green field projects only.

– Even if you are a hardcore backend developer, you have to understand how SPA works with your beautiful and ideal .NET APIs. You should understand how your code will be deployed, where and why this or that tool and environment were chosen. It’s not enough to just write code using the latest language sugar code styles.

– A good .NET engineer is a full stack engineer with DevOps skills. For example: Being able to build CI/CD from scratch, work with Terraform.

What’s are your 3 predictions for where .NET is heading in 2023?

  1. There will be more situations when people are moved from one team or domain to another.
  2. We will see an increased usage in code generation.
  3. Incremental improvements in .NET: In web, unification of work and integration with other languages and approaches. For example, MediatR will become part of the BCL in .NET 8.

Check out the .NET 8 roadmap on GitHub.