Chapter 9. Asynchronous Programming Model

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

  • Mixing asynchronous programming with tasks

  • Working with TaskFactory.FromAsync

  • Programming continuations after asynchronous methods end

  • Combining results from multiple concurrent asynchronous operations

  • Creating a responsive UI

  • Performing asynchronous WPF UI updates

  • Performing asynchronous Windows Forms UI updates

  • Creating tasks that perform EAP operations

  • Working with TaskCompletionSource

This chapter is about the advantages of mixing existing asynchronous programming models with tasks. The asynchronous programming models aren't new and they've been included as part of .NET since the first version. However, the task-based programming model is completely new. Therefore, mixing the old models with the new one is a bit complex. This chapter provides real-life examples that take advantage of the simplicity of Task instances and their task continuation features to perform concurrent asynchronous jobs related to the existing asynchronous programming models.

In addition, this chapter teaches one of the most complex topics related to concurrent programming: the process of updating the user interface (UI) from diverse tasks and threads. The chapter explains patterns to update the UI in both Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications.

MIXING ASYNCHRONOUS PROGRAMMING WITH TASKS

A Task represents an asynchronous operation, as explained in Chapter 2, "Imperative Data Parallelism." Therefore, if you want to perform ...

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