Visual C# 2010 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

Chapter 15. Parallel Programming

With version 4.0 of the .NET Framework, Microsoft introduced a new model for writing applications that need to perform multiple simultaneous tasks—that model is known as parallel programming, and the implementation is called the Task Parallel Library. Unlike the traditional approach to multitasking, where you create and manage a set of threads in your code, the new parallel programming model lets you focus on the tasks you need to accomplish and allows the runtime to create and manage the threads on your behalf.

There key advantage of this approach is that your code is focused on the tasks you need to perform, not the way in which they will be performed. The main disadvantage is that you give up direct control of ...