Tutorial: Get Comfortable with .NET Core and the CLI

The Short Version
I've created a walkthrough to get started using .NET Core and the command-line interface (CLI). It's available on GitHub:

github.com/jeremybytes/core-cli: DemoWalkthrough.md

This is based on a presentation that I've given a couple of times this year.

Update Jul 2021: A .NET 5 version of this walkthrough is also available: https://github.com/jeremybytes/dotnet50-cli.

The Longer Version
.NET Core is the future of .NET. If you come from a .NET background, you're used to using .NET Framework with Visual Studio. .NET Core has some differences that are worth getting to know.

.NET Core has a big emphasis on using a command-line interface (CLI). A primary reason for this is its cross-platform nature. Using the CLI and Visual Studio Code, we can write .NET applications using the same development environment on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

Even if you're strictly a Windows developer, it's good to understand the command line so that you can use the visual tools more effectively. I find myself switching among Visual Studio 2019, the command line, and Visual Studio Code depending on what I'm doing. By understanding the command-line tools, we can pick the best/easiest option for what we're doing at the time.

This walkthrough will get you started with .NET Core and get you ready to dive deeper into the environment.

Level
Introductory

Target Audience
The .NET developer who has been using .NET Framework with Visual Studio.

If you have been wondering about .NET Core and how the environment differs from the .NET Framework that you've been using, then you'll get lots of good info and tips from this.

If you've been using .NET Core on a regular basis, you won't get as much out of it.

Goals
Get comfortable using .NET Core from the command line.

• Create new projects (web service, unit tests, console application).
• Run a web service in a self-hosted environment.
• Add a reference to another project.
• Run unit tests.
• Add a NuGet package.
• Create a solution and add projects.

Along the way, we'll also see how the project system differs in .NET Core compared to .NET Framework. We'll also use the built-in dependency injection that comes with ASP.NET Core.

Links
The full repository with the completed sample code can be found here: https://github.com/jeremybytes/core-cli-30.

The walkthrough is at the root level of the project in the Walkthrough.md file.

The Walkthrough is a Markdown (.md) file. If you do not already have a favorite Markdown viewer, you can just look at it directly on the GitHub site.

Screenshots
Here's a few screenshots of what you'll find along the way.

Running the Service:

Output from the Service:

Running Unit Tests:

Test Results (with a failing test):

Running the Console Application that calls the Service:

Using Dependency Injection on the API Controller:

Check It Out
If this sounds interesting, be sure to take a look:

Walkthrough: Get Comfortable with .NET Core and the CLI

Happy Coding!