Last year's C# Advent was a success beyond anything I expected. I was worried that I wouldn't get enough sign-ups, but I ended up turning some people away. I was worried that people wouldn't get their blog posts done on time, but every single author delivered on time. I was worried there would be too much overlap in topics. There was a tiny bit, but every author's post had a unique, quality perspective, even if there was some overlap.

So, I'm doubling down this year! Each day of the Advent calendar will have up to TWO blog posts. That means that there is a maximum of FIFTY slots! So, tell your C# friends and let's fill up this calendar.

A little history: I heard about the F# Advent Calendar, a tradition that's been carried on since 2010 (2014 in English) and is still going strong in 2018. I think this is a great idea, and so I organized one for C#! (I asked Sergey Tihon for permission!). Other Advent calendars: C# Advent Calendar (in Spanish), Q# Advent Calendar.

So, I need you to write a C# blog post!

Here are the rules:

1. Reserve a slot on Twitter (with hash tag #csadvent) or leave a comment on this post. You do not have to announce your topic until the day you reserve.
2. Prepare a blog post (in English).
3. Add a link in your blog post that links back to here, so that your readers may find the entire advent.
4. Publish your blog post on the specified date. Your post must be related to C# in some way, but otherwise the content is completely up to you. I've posted a few ideas below to get your creativity flowing.
5. Share your post on Twitter with hashtags #csharp and #csadvent

Below are all the slots, and who has claimed each date.

I will do my best to keep this up to date. The slots will be first come first serve. I also allowed last year's authors to get first crack. I have already claimed one of the December 25th slots for myself, but I can be persuaded to change if you really want that date.

Alternates:

• IF ALL FIFTY SLOTS FILL UP, please leave a comment or tweet with #csadvent anyway!
• I will put you on this 'standby' list in case someone drops out or can't deliver their post in time.
• Standby list:
  • Corstiaan Hesselink

Some ideas/topics to help inspire you:

1. Blazor - now's your chance to experiment with writing C# for the browser
2. Your latest open source contribution - show the community how you contributed and why
3. Your favorite C# language feature - it doesn't even have to be a new feature, just blog about something you love about C#
4. Introduce your favorite NuGet package / library. Even if it's a library you take for granted, not everyone has heard about it.
5. How to avoid a pitfall you found with performance/memory/etc
6. Integration/deployment of a C# application with Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, TeamCity, Azure, etc
7. Write a "how to" for one of the many tools discussed in an episode of the Cross Cutting Concerns podcast
8. Create a video tutorial and embed it in your blog post.
9. Interview someone about C# and embed an audio player in your blog post.
10. Implement a simplified example of a design pattern in C#

Thanks to everyone who is participating!

If you were an author of a C# Advent blog post in 2017, you get a chance to sign up earlier than the general public.

Tweet #csadvent or leave a comment below with the date you want to blog on. Note that this year, each day has up to TWO slots. So if someone has already claimed the day you want, that day may still be available.

The general call for C# Advent authors will go out next week, so claim your dates as soon as possible. Just like last year, you do NOT have to pick a topic right now. If you DO want to pick a topic, I will pencil it in, but you are free to change it at any time up until the date you pick.

UPDATE: The calendar is full. You can sign up to be an alternate, in case someone drops out or fails to deliver. I can't give you a date though, so you'd essentially have to have a post ready to go as soon as December 1st. And please, don't let the lack of an advent date keep you from writing that C# blog post! Finally, due to the tremendous response, I will double up the slots next year (from 25 to 50), assuming this advent goes well :)

I heard about the F# Advent Calendar, a traditional that's been carried on since 2010 (2014 in English). I think this is a great idea, and there needs to be one for C# too!

(I asked Sergey Tihon for permission!)

So, I need you to write a C# blog post!

Here are the rules:

1. Reserve a slot on Twitter (with hash tag #csadvent) or leave a comment on this post. You do not have to announce your topic until the day you reserve.
2. Prepare a blog post (in English).
3. Add a link in your blog post that links back to here, so that your readers may find the entire advent.
4. Publish your blog post on the specified date. Your post must be related to C# in some way, but otherwise the content is completely up to you. I've posted a few ideas below to get your creativity flowing.
5. Post the link to your post on Twitter with hashtags #csharp and #csadvent

Below are all the slots, and who has claimed each date. I chose to go with 25 total slots (yes I know some advent calendars are 24).

I will do my best to keep this up to date. The slots will be first come first serve. I have already claimed December 25th for myself, since I assume that will be the least desirable date. But I'm happy to swap if you really really want that day.

Date	Claimed by	Blog Post
Dec 1, 2017	Hilary Weaver-Robb	Combining Integration and UI Automation in C#
Dec 2, 2017	Jamie Rees	Open Source, 2 years retrospective
Dec 3, 2017	Lucas Lansky	Analyzing unit-ness of white-box tests using OpenCover
Dec 4, 2017	Andrei Ignat	AOP with Roslyn–part 3–custom code at beginning of each method
Dec 5, 2017	Baskar rao Dsn	Quick Actions in Visual Studio 2017
Dec 6, 2017	Bill Sempf	Coding for an encrypted service
Dec 7, 2017	Brant Burnett	Who says C# interfaces can't have implementations?
Dec 8, 2017	Lee Englestone	Creating Alexa Skills with Web-API and hosting on Microsoft Azure
Dec 9, 2017	James Hickey	Deck the Halls With Strategy Pattern Implementations in C#: Basic to Advanced
Dec 10, 2017	Carl Layton	Using C# dynamic Keyword To Replace Data Transfer Objects
Dec 11, 2017	James Curran	An Exercise in Refactoring - Specification Pattern
Dec 12, 2017	Andrew Lock	Creating a .NET Standard Roslyn Analyzer in Visual Studio 2017
Dec 13, 2017	Jonathan Danylko	5 More C# Extension Methods for the Stocking! (plus a bonus method for enums)
Dec 14, 2017	Gérald Barré (aka Meziantou)	Interpolated strings: advanced usages
Dec 15, 2017	Baskar rao Dsn	Using BenchMarkDotNet for Performance BenchMarking
Dec 16, 2017	Chris Bohatka	Breaking Down Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control in C# with SimpleInjector
Dec 17, 2017	David Pine	C# Special Edition
Dec 18, 2017	Barret Blake	Using C# and Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics to Identify and Relate Text Documents
Dec 19, 2017	Ed Charbeneau	5 .NET Standard Features You Shouldn’t Miss
Dec 20, 2017	Kevin Miller	Things you Should do with Strings While You’re Coworkers are on Holiday and No One is Checking the Production Code Branch
Dec 21, 2017	Angus Kinsey	What makes C# great?
Dec 22, 2017	Jim Wilcox	Unloading the UI Thread in C# on Windows 10 + UWP
Dec 23, 2017	Duane Newman	All I want for Christmas is a C# Build System
Dec 24, 2017	Calvin Allen	Live Unit Testing in Visual Studio 2017
Dec 25, 2017	Matthew D. Groves	Swashbuckle and Swagger with ASP.NET Core

Alternates:

• Leave a comment or tweet with #csadvent to be put on this list!

Some ideas:

1. Introduction to [your favorite NuGet package]
2. X C# Tricks and Tips
3. JSON (De)serialization
4. Streams
5. The newer C# 6 and 7 features
6. Async/await

Thanks to everyone who is participating! I hope this goes well and it can become an annual tradition.