Evolution of C# (1.0 – 5.0)

C# is a multi-paradigm (structured, imperative, object-oriented, event-driven, functional, generic, reflective, concurrent) programming language. It was developed within Microsoft. The development team which consisted of Scott Wiltamuth, Peter Golde and others was led by Anders Hejlsberg.

The first version of C# was released by Microsoft in July 2000. The latest version of C# is 5.0, which was released on August 15, 2012.

C# 1.0

C# 1.0 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2002. C# 1.0 targets .NET Framework 1.0. It was the first language adopted by developers to build .NET applications.

C# 1.2

C# 1.2 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2003. C# 1.2 targets .NET Framework 1.1.

C# 2.0

C# 2.0 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2005. C# 2.0 targets .NET Framework 2.0.

The new features added in C# 2.0 are as given below:

• Generics
• Partial types
• Anonymous methods
• Iterators
• Nullable types
• Private setters (properties)
• Method group conversions (delegates)
• Covariance and Contravariance

C# 3.0

C# 3.0 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2008. It is also compatible with Visual Studio 2010. C# 3.0 targets the .NET Framework 2.0 (Except LINQ/Query Extensions), .NET Framework 3.0 (Except LINQ/Query Extensions) and .NET Framework 3.5.

The new features added in C# 3.0 are as given below:

• Implicitly typed local variables (var)
• Object and collection initializers
• Auto-Implemented properties
• Anonymous types
• Extension methods
• Query expressions
• Lambda expressions
• Expression trees
• Partial Methods
• LINQ

C# 4.0

C# 4.0 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2010. C# 4.0 targets .NET Framework 4.0.

The new features added in C# 4.0 are as given below:

• Dynamic binding (Late binding)
• Named and optional arguments
• Generic Covariance and Contravariance
• Embedded interop types ("NoPIA")

C# 5.0

C# 5.0 was released by Microsoft with Visual Studio 2012. C# 5.0 targets .NET Framework 4.5.

The new features added in C# 4.0 are as given below:

• Asynchronous methods
• Caller info attributes

Future

The upcoming versions of C# might include the following features:

• Compiler-as-a-service ("Roslyn")

The Evolution of C# programming language