Chapter 1, eBook Manager and Catalogue App, covers the new features introduced in C# 7, which allow developers to write less code and be more productive. We will create an eBook manager application. If you are like me, you have eBooks scattered all over your hard drive and some external drives as well. This application will provide a mechanism to bring all these various locations together into a virtual storage space. The application is functional, but it can be further enhanced to suit your needs.
Chapter 2, Cricket Score Calculator and Tracker, says that object-oriented programming (OOP) is a crucial element of writing .NET applications. Proper OOP ensures that developers can easily share code between projects. You don't have to rewrite code that has already been written. In this chapter, we will create an ASP.NET Bootstrap web application that keeps track of the cricket score of your two favorite teams. It is also with this application that the principles of object-oriented programming will become evident.
Chapter 3, Cross Platform .NET Core System Info Manager, is all about what .NET Core is; .NET Core allows us to create applications that will run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. To illustrate this in this chapter, we will be creating a simple Information Dashboard application that displays information about the computer we are running on as well as the weather conditions at the location of that machine.
Chapter 4, Task Bug Logging ASP .NET Core MVC App, takes a look at using MongoDB with ASP.NET Core MVC by creating a task/bug logging application. MongoDB allows developers to be more productive and can easily be added to .NET Core.
Chapter 5, ASP.NET SignalR Chat Application, begins by getting you to imagine having the ability to have your server-side code push data to your web page in real time, without the user needing to refresh the page. The ASP.NET SignalR library provides developers with a simplified method to add real-time web functionality to applications. FYI, keep this chapter in mind when going through Chapter 8, Twitter Clone Using OAuth. This is a perfect application to integrate SignalR into.
Chapter 6, Web Research Tool with Entity Framework Core, discusses Entity Framework Core, which is an essential piece in our .NET Core education. One of the most frustrating parts of developing an application that needs to read data from and write data to some sort of database is trying to get the communication layer between your code and the database established. Entity Framework Core solves this easily in .NET Core applications, and this chapter shows you how.
Chapter 7, A Serverless Email Validation Azure Function, shows you how to create an Azure Function and how to call that function from an ASP.NET Core MVC application. The Azure Function will just be validating an email address. Serverless computing is illustrated here, and the benefits will become clear while working through the chapter.
Chapter 8, Twitter Clone Using OAuth, expresses that sometimes I wish I could tweak Twitter a bit to suit my own needs, for example, saving favorite tweets. In this chapter, we will take a look at how easy it is to create a basic Twitter clone using ASP.NET Core MVC. You can then easily add functionality to your application to customize it to your specific requirements.
Chapter 9, Using Docker and ASP.NET Core, explores Docker, which is all the rage these days, and for very good reason. This chapter illustrates how Docker can benefit developers. I will also show you how to create an ASP.NET Core MVC application and run it inside a Docker Container. In the last part of the chapter, we will see how we can use Docker Hub with GitHub to set up automated builds.
