Async Calls in Silverlight and WPF

This was very fast paced for such a complex subject. Here are the highlights:

• Three commandments of Multi-Threading: 1. Thou shall not block the UI thread, 2. Thou shall not access objects on a non -UI thread. , 3. Thou shall not access variables on multi-threads without protection (locks).


• The instructor, Brian Noyles, went over different patterns for Ansyc processing:


• Begin/End pattern, which is the most powerful but also the most complex. he didn't recommend using this for UI stuff.


• Async/Completed pattern. This is the one we currently use in our Silverlight app. This was the most familiar to me.


• TPL: Task Parallel Library. Only .NET 4 and not for SL (yet).


• Parallel Framework (PFX) and PLINQ. There are Parallel.For and ForEach commands, and PLINQ is a LINQ statement that runs on multiple threads, var q = from item in data.AsParallel() select item +1


• Task Based Ansyc Pattern (TAP). He stated that "tasks" are the future. This is only available as a CTP but will be released in the next version of .NET. This adds new keywords to the languages (VB and C#). It allows you to write Synchronous looking code which actually compiles down to be Async. Two of the new keywords are: Async and Await.


• Reactive Extenstions (Rx): Like LINQ for Events. Allows you to write LINQ against some evnents, kind of hard to follow his demo. He said is available now.