Question

I was browsing the Hidden Features of C# question and thought I would try out one of the features I was unfamiliar with. Unfortunately I use Visual Studio 2005 and the feature in question was introduced later. Is there a good list for new features in C# 3.0 (Visual Studio 2008) vs. C# 2.0 (Visual Studio 2005)?

Answer 1

This is not a comprehensive list but these are some of my favorite new features of C# 3.0:

New type initializers. Instead of saying this:

Person person = new Person(); person.Name = 'John Smith'; 

I can say this:

Person person = new Person() { Name = 'John Smith' }; 

Similarly, instead of adding items individually, I can initialize types that implement IEnumerable like this:

List<string> list = new List<string> { 'foo', 'bar' };   

The new syntax for lambda expressions is also nice. Instead of typing this:

people.Where(delegate(person) { return person.Age >= 21;); 

I can type this:

people.Where(person => person.Age >= 21 ); 

You can also write extension methods to built in types:

public static class StringUtilities {     public static string Pluralize(this word)     {        ...     } } 

Which allows something like this:

string word = 'person'; word.Pluralize(); // Returns 'people' 

And finally. Anonymous types. So you can create anonymous classes on the fly, like this:

var book = new { Title: '...', Cost: '...' };