7 overlooked .Net features

Sergey Shamov — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:34:35 +0000

.Net is constantly evolving, a new version comes out every year, and it's easy to lose track of some of the useful changes.
I compiled a list of 7 (mostly) recent features that I from my code reviews I think get overlooked by devs (or devs' AI tools).

1. Extension Members (C# 14)

In addition to extension methods, we can now add extension properties and static methods to a type.
Properties are mostly just for readability, and static extension methods are useful for writing factory methods instead of creating a separate factory class.

So instead of

public static class CustomerExtensions
{
    public static bool IsPayingCustomer(this Customer customer)
    {
        return customer.TotalSpent > 0;
    }
}

we can write

public implicit extension CustomerExtensions for Customer
{
    // Add a property to a class you don't control
    public bool IsPayingCustomer => this.TotalSpent > 0;

    // Add a static method
    public static Customer Parse(string json) 
        => JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Customer>(json);
}

No state or memory, just syntactic sugar for better readability. In the background the property is still an extension method.

var customer = Customer.Parse("{\"TotalSpent\": 100}");

var oldMethod = customer.IsPayingCustomer();

var newProperty = customer.IsPayingCustomer;

2. The `field` keyword (C# 14)

It isn't required anymore to define a backing field to have some logic in getter/setter.
Just use the field keyword (be careful not to name anything 'field' in the class) and get the implicit backing field.

public string Name
{
    get => field;
    set => field = value?.Trim();
}

3. File-based apps (.NET 10)

Do you have a console solution (or several) just for various small tools?
Now instead we can just run a single .cs file with dotnet run mytool.cs, without the need for any .sln or .csproj.
Write your single file like

// Add nuget packages with the special syntax
#:package Newtonsoft.Json@13.0.3

// Still need to add using statements
using Newtonsoft.Json;  

// Access command line arguments
var allArgs = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();

4. `OrderedDictionary<TKey, TValue>` (.NET 9)

We now have a kind of a named list in shape of OrderedDictionary<TKey, TValue>.
The elements can be both accessed by key and by index.

var laundryRoom = rooms[17];

var diningRoom = rooms["dining"];

The order of elements is the order of insertion, so 0 is the first inserted element.

5. `Enumerable.Index()` (.NET 9)

A tiny but sweet sugar: instead of writing a for loop

for (int i = 0; i < items.Count; i++)
{
    var item = items[i];
    // act
}

we can use foreach with IEnumerable and still get the index variable:

foreach (var (index, item) in items.Index())
{
    // act
}

6. `CountBy` and `AggregateBy` LINQ (.NET 9)

Another sweet addition:

// old count of items by status
var countByStatus = items.GroupBy(x => x.Status)
    .Select(g => new { g.Key, Count = g.Count() });

// new
var countByStatus = items.CountBy(x => x.Status);

// old sum of amounts by status
var aggregateByStatus = items.GroupBy(x => x.Status)
    .Select(g => new { g.Key, Sum = g.Sum(x => x.Amount) });

// new
var aggregateByStatus = items.AggregateBy(
    x => x.Status,              // Key selector
    seed: 0m,                   // Initial value
    (sum, x) => sum + x.Amount  // Aggregation logic
);

Apart from just being more readable, these methods skip the intermediate grouping allocation.

7. `CompareOptions.NumericOrdering` (.NET 9)

Finally we can sort string and have "file2" come before "file10", thanks to CompareOptions.NumericOrdering:

var sorted = myStrings.OrderBy(s => s,
    StringComparer.Create(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, 
        CompareOptions.NumericOrdering));

That's my list. Do you know other features people should use more often?

DEV Community: Sergey Shamov

7 overlooked .Net features

1. Extension Members (C# 14)

2. The field keyword (C# 14)

3. File-based apps (.NET 10)

4. OrderedDictionary<TKey, TValue> (.NET 9)

5. Enumerable.Index() (.NET 9)

6. CountBy and AggregateBy LINQ (.NET 9)

7. CompareOptions.NumericOrdering (.NET 9)

2. The `field` keyword (C# 14)

4. `OrderedDictionary<TKey, TValue>` (.NET 9)

5. `Enumerable.Index()` (.NET 9)

6. `CountBy` and `AggregateBy` LINQ (.NET 9)

7. `CompareOptions.NumericOrdering` (.NET 9)