C# in Depth

Chapter 5. Fast-tracked delegates

This chapter covers

• Longwinded C# 1 syntax

• Simplified delegate construction

• Covariance and contravariance

• Anonymous methods

• Captured variables

The journey of delegates in C# and .NET is 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 an awful 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 would be taking, years before the ...