Timing on .NET 8 compatibility
SwissCheese
Posts: 5 Bronze 2
We have updated an API to .NET 8.
We are trying to modify the SmartAssembly 8.1 project configuration to target the new dll but the UI just freezes and display the attached error after saving and reopening the project.
Do you have timing on when we can expect SmartAssembly to be compatible with .NET8?
We are trying to modify the SmartAssembly 8.1 project configuration to target the new dll but the UI just freezes and display the attached error after saving and reopening the project.
Do you have timing on when we can expect SmartAssembly to be compatible with .NET8?
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Answers
@redgate Just a rough timeline is what everyone wants...
SmartAssembly is used to move all our DLLs into a single file, It's part of our build process and with the release of dotnet 8, we're now waiting on this... as the compiled DLL from SmartAssembly is borked.
We need to know are we waiting for you to fix this? or are we moving onto another product, We pay for support, but honestly wonder if this is basically abandoned until you need a feature internally.
If you are not able to maintain the solution due to other priorities, I can understand
Just announce the product as being officially discontinued, provide refunds and we can move on.
... and please do not set this post as 'answered' again as we are still waiting for an answer
As a business that has relied on SmartAssembly for years, we need to make a decision if it's time to move to a different provider, or wait it out.
I feel your pain, we are in a similar situation.
Unfortunately, the response I have received from the RedGate support is that "there is an underlying architectural change we have been working on to better support the functionality and it's been substantially more challenging than expected; I'm afraid there's no official delivery date for .NET 8 at this time."
Personally, this sounds to me like (many) months if not more.
It pains me to see that a number of competitor products, such as dotfuscator, eazfuscator.net, dotnet_reactor, all mention being compatible with .NET 8. I have not tried any of them (yet). I am not sure this forum will be the ideal location for sharing experience in migrating to other solutions...
Sorry but no renewal this year then.
I appreciate the issue is frustrating, and the silence even more so!
Unfortunately, we just do not know when support for .NET 8 will be here. All we know is that it is on the priority list. When we do have more useful information I can assure you it will be shouted from the rooftops!
However, for several reasons, we have to migrate to .NET 8 by the end of the year. SmartAssembly not supporting .NET 8 is a blocker for us.
Hopefully, the "architectural change" mentioned in one of the posts above will make supporting new .NET versions much easier and faster in the future.
My team is able to get around the problem building and obfuscating our apps for net7.0, then linking them into a trivial net8.0 wrapper project that just delegates to the obfuscated net7.0 assembly's entry point, and deploying the result as a self-contained net8.0 executable. It would be nice to use net8.0 features in the inner projects, but at least this way we can still satisfy our customers' requirements for delivery on an actively supported dotnet runtime.
I'm afraid we got a little excited and updates our release notes a little early.
This version of Smart Assembly which supports .Net 8 is in closed beta, this is also why the nuget package has not been updated. To avoid further confusion the release notes have been reverted until the version is release to general availability.
Please accept our apologies for the confusion, we hope to go GA with this version in the very near future.
https://download.red-gate.com/checkforupdates/SmartAssembly/SmartAssembly_8.3.1.5568.exe
Thank you so much for your patience.
Victoria Wiseman | Redgate Software
Have you visited our Help Center?
Almost nothing, it was a minor bump to publish the nuget packages with 8.3.0 unintentionally missed.
I think there was also a very minor bug fix for a rare edge case of config mishandling.