Join us for the Great .NET 8 Hack

Aaron Powell

November 7th, 20236 5

Are you ready to unleash your creativity and coding skills with .NET 8? Join us for The Great .NET 8 Hack, a virtual hackathon to learn how to build cloud native apps or AI apps with the latest version of .NET. Whether you’re a beginner, a student, or an expert looking for a new challenge, this is the perfect opportunity for you!

.NET 8 is the newest release of the popular open source and cross-platform development platform that powers millions of apps across the web, mobile, desktop, gaming, IoT, and more. With .NET 8, you can take advantage of the latest features and improvements such as:

  • C# 12: The latest version of the modern and expressive programming language that supports nullable reference types, records, pattern matching, and more.
  • ASP.NET Core 8.0: The high-performance and scalable web framework that lets you build dynamic web apps, APIs, microservices, and serverless functions.

The Great .NET 8 Hack will run online from November 20 to December 4, 2023. You will have two weeks to build your own .NET 8 app based on one of the three themes: cloud native apps or AI apps. You can participate by yourself or as a team with your friends or colleagues!

To help you get started and learn new skills, we will also host live sessions with experts on the technologies from Microsoft including Gaurav Seth, Diego Colombo, and more! They will share their insights and tips on how to build awesome apps with .NET 8.

For the schedule and more information about the sessions, check out our GitHub repo.

All hackathon participants who submit an app will receive a digital badge. In addition, the winners selected by our judges will receive the following exciting prizes (up to 4 individuals if submitting as a team, prizes for each person on the team):

🏆 Grand Prize winner: The best of the best! This category rewards the solution that meets all judging criteria, wows judges, and has potential real-world value.

  • $500 per individual, up to $1500 total for a team of three 💸

🥇 Best Intelligent Apps solution:

  • $500 cash prize per team 💸

🥇 Best Cloud Native solution:

  • $500 cash prize per team 💸

🏅 All hackathon participants who submit an app will receive a digital badge.

We can’t wait to see what you will create with .NET 8! Share your journey throughout the hack on social with the #GreatDotNet8Hack hashtag. Let us know if you have any questions. Our team is always here to help you! Follow us on Twitter/X and Mastodon to stay up to date on our latest news and announcements.

Register today and we look forward to meeting you at #GreatDotNet8Hack.

PS: Do you think this blog post was written by a human or AI? 😉

Aaron Powell Principal Cloud Advocate, Cloud Advocacy

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6 comments

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  • gparmigiani 1

    also suggest trying out F# and .fsx and dotnet fsi for hacks and quick POCs, supports REPL and works great in vs, vscode with ionide or vs for mac. Maybe Microsoft should suggest that too? is a language much closer to Python scripting experience than C#, (no need for a fsproj or csproj, all in a single file) so good for starters and novices as well?

    https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/category/fsharp/

    • Weihan Li 1

      F# is great, and we could use a single C# file without csproj as well, with dotnet-script, dotnet-repl and dotnet-exec etc

      • Tyler 0 
        csc program.cs
      • John King 0

        Just try “CsharpREPL” global tool, it’s the best REPL for C# with intellsence enabled!

  • Full Story 2

    Good

  • Nabil Mahmud 0

    In line number 13, the write-up reads, “…You will have two weeks to build your own .NET 8 app based on one of the three themes: cloud native apps or AI apps.”
    I guess there is probably a typo. Won’t it be “two” themes instead of “three”?

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