Chapter 5. Fast-tracked delegates

This chapter covers

  • Long-winded C# 1 syntax
  • Simplified delegate construction
  • Covariance and contravariance
  • Anonymous methods
  • Captured variables

The journey of delegates in C# and .NET has been an interesting one, showing remarkable foresight (or really good luck) on the part of the designers. The conventions suggested for event handlers in .NET 1.0/1.1 didn’t make a lot of sense—until C# 2 showed up. Likewise, the effort put into delegates for C# 2 seems in some ways out of proportion to how widely used they are—until you see how pervasive they are in idiomatic C# 3 code. In other words, it’s as if the language and platform designers had a vision of at least the rough direction they’d be taking, years ...

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