.NET Parallel Programming

All about Async/Await, System.Threading.Tasks, System.Collections.Concurrent, System.Linq, and more…

.NET 4 - .NET Parallel Programming

C# memory model articles

December 14, 2012 Dec 14, 2012 12/14/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Igor Ostrovsky is one of the minds behind the parallel programming support in the .NET Framework.  Igor's recently written a great set of articles for MSDN Magazine to cover "The C# Memory Model in Theory and Practice".  Part 1 is available now in the December 2012 issue, and it's a great read...

PLINQ and Int32.MaxValue

November 16, 2012 Nov 16, 2012 11/16/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
In both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5, PLINQ supports enumerables with up to Int32.MaxValue elements.  Beyond that limit, PLINQ will throw an overflow exception.  LINQ to Objects itself has this limitation with certain query operators (such as the indexed Select operator which counts the elements processed), but PLINQ has it with more.This ...

New TaskCreationOptions and TaskContinuationOptions in .NET 4.5

September 22, 2012 Sep 22, 2012 09/22/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Astute users of the Task Parallel Library might have noticed three new options available across TaskCreationOptions and TaskContinuationOptions in .NET 4.5: DenyChildAttach, HideScheduler, and (on TaskContinuationOptions) LazyCancellation.  I wanted to take a few minutes to share more about what these are and why we added them....

ExecutionContext vs SynchronizationContext

June 15, 2012 Jun 15, 2012 06/15/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
I’ve been asked a few times recently various questions about ExecutionContext and SynchronizationContext, for example what the differences are between them, what it means to “flow” them, and how they relate to the new async/await keywords in C# and Visual Basic.  I thought I’d try to tackle some of those questions ...

Async Targeting Pack for Visual Studio 11 now available for .NET 4 and Silverlight 5

April 26, 2012 Apr 26, 2012 04/26/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
We’re happy to announce that you can now download an Async Targeting Pack for Visual Studio 11 that lets you target .NET 4 and Silverlight 5.  The included DLLs address the previously discussed issue of the Visual Studio 11 Beta compilers being incompatible with the AsyncCtpLibrary* DLLs from the Async CTP; with this targeting pack...

Do I need to dispose of Tasks?

March 25, 2012 Mar 25, 2012 03/25/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
I get this question a lot: “Task implements IDisposable and exposes a Dispose method.  Does that mean I should dispose of all of my tasks?” SummaryHere’s my short answer to this question: “No.  Don’t bother disposing of your tasks.”Here’s my medium-length answer: “No.  Don&...

Is it ok to use nested Parallel.For loops?

March 14, 2012 Mar 14, 2012 03/14/12
Stephen Toub - MSFT
Every now and then, I get this question: “is it ok to use nested Parallel.For loops?” The short answer is “yes.”  As is often the case, the longer answer is, well, longer. Typically when folks ask this question, they’re concerned about one of two things.  First, they’re concerned that each nested loop will assume it “...