Summary  
This chapter demonstrates how to set up a basic C# console application project, explains the default namespace and Program class structure (with or without top-level statements), and shows how to use printing for output.  

General domain of usage  
Command-line tool development

You can download <b>Visual Studio Community</b> from <a 
href="https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/"
target="_blank"
style="color: #ff8a00; font-weight: 600; text-decoration: none; transition: 0.3s ease-in-out;"
onmouseover="this.style.color='#ff0000'"
onmouseout="this.style.color='#d27204'">the Official website</a>.

The steps for creating a new Console Application project are summarized below:
1. Open up your **Visual Studio**;
2. Click on "Create a new project";
3. Select the "Console App" template and click next;
4. Set a **Project Name** and click **Next**;
5. Set the .NET version to latest or **.NET 8**;
6. Make sure "Do not use top-level statements" is checked;
7. Click **Create**.


What is a C# console application, in simple terms? 

This course will give you a solid foundation to begin making applications using .NET in C#. Covering console applications, asynchronous programming, web services, database fundamentals, and ADO.NET CRUD operations, you'll gain practical skills. From creating apps and handling exceptions to optimizing database access, this course ensures a robust understanding of essential .NET development concepts.

In this section we will learn about what is .NET, how to setup the development environment and how to start making some console apps. Apart from that we will also learn how to take input from the user in the console for making interactive applications.

In this section, we will be learning how to perform multiple tasks at once to improve the performance and responsiveness of applications. We will also briefly learn what Web Services and APIs are. This will give us an introduction to how the internet and websites work. We will also learn how to use APIs.

In this section we will learn what are databases, specifically what are SQL databases and how to create them. We will study their structure and will learn to perform some basic operations on the databases. This chapter will serve as an introduction to ADO.NET which is a .NET module used for interacting with databases.

In this section, we'll cover the fundamental CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) using SQL. We'll explore SQL syntax at a basic level and recap how to implement each SQL statement in C# code. While some parts may serve as a review from the previous section, this will provide a solid understanding of essential database concepts, enabling you to understand both the SQL and C# code and write it independently.

In this chapter we will learn about additional functions or methods for making database management more efficient. For-example executing multiple SQL commands at once using Stored Procedures, and retrieving data in bulk from the SQL database using DataSet.

Creating a Console Application