Oh hey… Visual Studio wants to update again.
Microsoft and the .NET Foundation has just released .NET Core 2.1. This one is a long-term support (LTS) release, although they are expecting to stuff some extra features in the next couple months before the metaphorical train leaves the station. So, basically, expect a nice, stable version of .NET Core by the end of summer that will be good until around 2021.
The headlining feature of this version is Span<T>. This struct allows C# to view into an existing buffer without copies, but also with type- and memory-safety. If you’re interfacing with a native DLL, you will no longer need to use the unsafe keyword if you operate on the Span. I’m guessing this will be useful for enterprise applications, although that might just be my personal experience clouding my world-view.
For a little extra background, .NET comes in two flavors: .NET Core and .NET Standard. They are kept up to date in parallel, but .NET Core is a multi-platform subset that ignores a lot of stuff like WPF / Windows Forms, etc. That way you can develop cross-platform applications to a specific standard, while Windows-centric developers can do their own thing with windows and buttons and stuff.
It’s available in Visual Studio 2017 (15.7) so click on that yellow flag.
MoltenVK is coming along I
MoltenVK is coming along I just wnat to see if this may be good also with an external GPU plugged into the macbook’s TB3 port.
“Yesterday Valve released Vulkan support for Dota 2 on macOS. Indeed, this first major game relying upon MoltenVK for mapping Vulkan over the Apple Metal drivers is delivering performance gains.” (1)
(1)
“Initial Vulkan Performance On macOS With Dota 2 Is Looking Very Good”
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dota-2-Initial-Mac-Vulkan