Starting Asynchronous Work Using Tasks

As multi-core processors are quickly becoming ubiquitous, it becomes increasingly important to use parallel and asynchronous programming techniques to create responsive, high-performance applications. The latest .NET releases have responded to this need by introducing the Task Parallel Library (TPL) in .NET 4, and the async/await keywords in C# 5.

We have created a set of fast-paced, code-driven videos on asynchronous programming in C# using TPL and async/await, with a focus on the Task-based Asynchronous Pattern (TAP). If you want a concise introduction to Tasks and async/await, these videos are for you! The videos are under 5 minutes each, and are intended to give a quick overview of each subject. The accompanying blog posts have links for further study.

This first video shows how to start asynchronous work using the Task.Run method, which returns a Task or Task<TResult>. The video also shows how to create tasks that are not run on any thread using TaskCompletionSource<TResult>.

Enjoy!

For further reading, see:

• The Task-based Asynchronous Pattern by Stephen Toub (Microsoft)
• Parallel Programming with .NET blog: There are many excellent articles here on async/await and tasks.

Next week’s video: Continuation Tasks.

Posted by Scott Fleischman on May 10, 2013