In older c#, I would have a ViewModel like this:

public Class MyViewModel
{
    [Required]
    public string FirstName { get; set; }

    public string MiddleName { get; set; }

    [Required]
    public string LastName{ get; set; }
}

then in my controller:

var model = new MyViewModel();
return View(model);

(I know you might just not pass a ViewModel into the View on GET, but imagine I need to to set other properties).

Now in newer c#, I’m doing this instead:

public Class MyViewModel
{
    public required string FirstName { get; set; }

    public string MiddleName { get; set; }

    public required string LastName{ get; set; }
}

But now the compiler won’t let create new MyViewModel() anymore, because I have to set the required properties. I understand why, because that’s how required works. But I don’t want to set any initial values for those properties; because I want the user to fill them out on the form/View. They’re “required” because I want the built-in validation that won’t let them submit.

I can get around this by initializing them all to empty string; either in the ViewModel itself or in the controller when I instantiate the class. But this seems almost like a hack, or at the least it leads to ugly code. Is there a proper/expected way to do this?