If you purchase a copy of my new book, ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition, and live in the UK or Europe, you can win one of 25 free tickets to APIDays London, worth £799! You'll have to be quick though—the deadline for entry is Wednesday 23rd August at midnight GMT. What's more, you'll get 35% off on your purchase of my book!

If ASP.NET Core isn't your thing, or you've already bought my new book, there are 11 other API-related titles that qualify for entry. You can find the full list here.

What is APIDays London?

APIDays London takes place on September 13th and 14th, 2023, in London, UK. The theme this year is “APIs for Smarter Platforms and Business Processes”, and will offer attendees valuable insights into how businesses enhance their processes and customer experiences using AI APIs, and how they can leverage this technology to drive growth and gain a competitive advantage. With over 50 speakers and sessions there's something for everyone!

How to win!

APIDays have partnered with Manning to offer reads in the UK and Europe the chance to win one of 25 free tickets to APIDays London. Each ticket is worth £799 and includes full access to the two-day conference.

To win:

• Follow this link to my new book, ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition. Alternatively, follow this link to find one of the other 11 titles included in the offer.
• Purchase one of the eligible titles in any format midnight GMT August 23, 2023. By using the promotional code apidays23-35 you'll also receive a 35% discount.
• You'll be entered into a raffle to win one of the 25 free tickets, worth £799.
• The winners will be notified by email on August 24.

Please note that travel and accommodation are not included. Offer restricted to customers residing in the UK and Europe. Please check the terms and conditions here for more information.

About ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition

ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition has been fully updated to .NET 7, including updating to the new WebApplication and WebApplicationBuilder pattern and everything that entails! This was a big part of the update, updating all the code samples and replacing the Startup/Program.cs based code with top-level programs.

If for some reason you don't like the WebApplication approach, chapter 30 describes how to use a custom HostBuilder instance, how to separate your configuration into a Startup class, and how to take a middle-road between the two.

The big additions in the third edition of the book centre around minimal APIs. Minimal APIs provide a great introduction to ASP.NET Core, as there's fewer concepts to grasp when you're first getting started. That said, they have a surprising depth to them once you add model building, route groups, and filters.

For this reason, I chose to restructure the first half of the book around minimal APIs. Part 1 focuses on the basics of ASP.NET Core and building minimal API applications. By starting with minimal APIs, you can build applications fast, without worrying about the extra conventions introduced by MVC or the Razor syntax required for Razor Pages. That also enabled me to introduce topics like dependency injection and configuration earlier than in the previous edition.

Even though I focus on minimal APIs initially, you'll still learn about Razor Pages in depth in Part 3. I cover how to build page based applications using Razor Pages, the Razor syntax, and why I favour Razor Pages over MVC controllers in most situations these days.

Part 4 of the book focuses on important concepts such as authentication, authorization, logging, and security. Given the early focus on minimal APIs, this edition of the book also includes a chapter on API security specifically, looking at common specifications like OAuth and OpenID Connect. Both of these topics are books in their own right, so this chapter aims to give you a feeling for how they work and why you might want to use them.

In part 5, I cover a variety of topics, such as building custom components, creating headless/background services using the generic host, and testing your application. By the time you reach the end of the book you will have covered a wide range of ASP.NET Core application types, how to test them, and how to build them. Everything you need to get started building in the real world!

Summary

Purchase a copy of my new book, ASP.NET Core in Action, Third Edition for the chance to win one of 25 free tickets to APIDays London, worth £799! But be quick—the deadline for entry is Wednesday 23rd August at midnight GMT, with winners announced on the 24th!