Async in C# 5.0

Preface

Async is a powerful feature added to the C# programming language in C# 5.0. It comes at a time when performance and parallelization are becoming a major concern of software developers. Used correctly, it can help to write programs with performance and parallelization properties that would have needed reams of code without it. However, what it does to your program is complex, and there are plenty of aspects to how it works that aren’t immediately obvious.

Excepting Visual Basic .NET, which added async at the same time as C#, no other mainstream programming languages offer capabilities equivalent to async. Experience and guidance in using it in real-world programs is rare. This book is the guidance from my experience using async, as well as ideas drawn from the designers of C# and computer science theory. More importantly, it shows what async is, how it works, and why you might want to use it.

Intended Audience

This book is intended for people who are already confident C# programmers. Perhaps you are looking to understand async, to choose whether to start using it. Perhaps you have already started using async, but need to learn advanced techniques and caveats to make best use of it.

Having said that, it doesn’t assume knowledge of other advanced C# features, so the book is approachable to C# beginners, as well as programmers confident in other languages.

C# is used in many kinds of application, and async is useful for different reasons in each of these. For that reason, this book ...