Embrace Async

Async is the new sync. Face it, no one likes to write asynchronous, multithreaded code. Well, no one in their right mind anyway. But more and more we need to do it, especially on the client side. Silverlight and WinRT make us do just about anything that doesn't involve the UI itself using asynchronous APIs. With the new async keywords being added to C# and VB, as well as the async patterns of JavaScript, we have the tools to make async a bit easier to deal with. This session will start by presenting the new async keywords in C# and the way you can write sequential discontinuous code. Then you will learn some of what is going on under the covers and how you can address more advanced and optimized scenarios by working with Tasks directly. You will also get a brief exposure to the Parallel class and PLINQ for dealing with collections in an async way. After this session, you will be able to approach asynchronous programming with calm confidence that the code you write will be readable and easy to understand, while still non-blocking and performant.