Comment Feed for Channel 9 - Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Michael — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:28:50 GMT

Async CTP link doesn't work

posted by Michael

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Charles — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:58:01 GMT

@Michael: Will work soon. Sorry, I jumped the gun
C

posted by Charles

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

felix9 — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:07:41 GMT

oh, they are doing it for C# too, when this emerges on PDC08 IIRC its a VB language feature, oh right they are co-evolving now, mmm...

posted by felix9

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Charles — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:38:40 GMT

@felix9: What are you talking about? Watch the video...

posted by Charles

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

felix9 — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:00:04 GMT

uhhh...maybe its just my first sight of these stuff are demoed in vb language ... heh

busy watching PDC now ...

posted by felix9

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

exoteric — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:32:36 GMT

Iterators and async, IEnumerable and IObservable, state machines and duality, oh yes, LINQs abound.

Great explanation from Anders.

posted by exoteric

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

BitCrazed — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:35:19 GMT

Isn't it amazing how how much easier it is to comprehend a complex subjecct when presented by someone with so much enthusiasm?

Great work Anders & Team. Can't wait to see what you attack next

posted by BitCrazed

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

SteveRichter — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:17:52 GMT

the async stuff sounds great. Any plans in C# to make dependency properties a part of the language? Having to understand and debug dependency properties made learning WPF kind of hard for me.

posted by SteveRichter

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Rafael — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:35:01 GMT

Erm... how come no comment on IObservable? Seriously guys, you talked about IEnumerable, iterators and all the good stuff, but not a word on Rx? What hath thou done Charles? *rant*

posted by Rafael

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Charles — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:52:31 GMT

@Rafael: we talked about Rx in other interiews including the C9 Live session with Anders.
C

posted by Charles

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

TommyCarlier — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:26:57 GMT

I know you can't have try { ... } finally { ...} or using (...) { ... } inside an iterator in .NET 2.0. Do asynchronous methods have the same problem?

posted by TommyCarlier

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

_ivan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:09:37 GMT

this is what I have throughout my program and it is very annoying just like Mr. Anders mentioned, inverse flow of control with 2 delegate callbacks one for regular return, the other one for exception.
EventHandler failureHandler = null;
EventHandler successHandler = null;

failureHandler = (s,ea) =>
{
    obj.FailureEvent -= failureHandler;
    obj.SuccessEvent -= successHandler;
    // handle failed state
   ...
};

successHandler = (s,ea) =>
{
    obj.FailureEvent -= failureHandler;
    obj.SuccessEvent -= successHandler;
    // handle success state
    ...
};

obj.SuccessEvent += successHandler;
obj.FailureEvent += failureHandler;
obj.RunAsync();
I am very looking forward to this feature.

posted by _ivan

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

_ivan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:11:39 GMT

Hmm, I guess line break (carriage return) is not an option.

posted by _ivan

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Behrouz — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:24:25 GMT

Does anyone know when this async stuff gets offically released? I guess my question is whether Async CTP is reliable enough to be incorporated into my product code.

posted by Behrouz

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

wil2300 — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:52:38 GMT

Fantastic stuff, I need to read up on F#'s async some more and look at the TPL!

posted by wil2300

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

elmer — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:47:18 GMT

Did anyone else find themselves checking their inbox while watching that video ?

posted by elmer

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

magicalclick — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 09:52:38 GMT

For some reason, I really like this guy's attitude. Brilliance is one thing. Addressing the credit is one thing. But, something else makes me really put me in comfort with him. Maybe he makes it easier to understand for me. Or maybe some other reasons. So, I hope he continues his good work in MS and I hope MS values his work too. After all, I hope to use his stuff for a long long time.

posted by magicalclick

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Sadatay — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:17:35 GMT

@ elmer. Absolutely. But then I realized I didn't have Windows Live Mail open. Nice explanation Mr. Anders.

posted by Sadatay

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

exoteric — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:18:18 GMT

@elmer:Nope.

posted by exoteric

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Uncompetative — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:11:30 GMT

I don't mean to be mean, but Anders did dodge the final question. In having asynchrony done by the compiler you will lose control, so... how well is it optimised, what efficiency compromises are inherent in a solution that cannot be "hand-coded". Hejlsberg just turned around the question and answered it as if it had been about the comparatively minimal creeping featurism of the syntax.

posted by Uncompetative

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Mrk Mnl — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:53:16 GMT

Hmm.. I think this is more for the VB guys, its already easy using anonymous methods from C# for which this syntax is just a shortcut (I am guessing):
someThread.BeginInvoke(new Action(delegate()
{
// do something
});

posted by Mrk Mnl

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

ecofriend — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:42:10 GMT

No Async love for Express editions? I tried installing the CTP (I have Visual Studio Web Developer and C# Express installed) but could not located the Async DLLs after.

posted by ecofriend

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Clint — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:16:40 GMT

@ecofriend: let me find out as I'd love to use this in some Coding4Fun projects

posted by Clint

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Clint — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:30:15 GMT

@ecofriend: got a response by the always wonderful LIsa Feigenbaum over at the MSDN forums. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/async/thread/4945ecf1-b242-4173-9ada-570c731bd3fb

Quick answer is: current CTP is Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium or Ultimate only. You can download a trial at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/download

posted by Clint

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Nizhegorodov — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 08:45:41 GMT

What if ALL functions will be decared async automatically? What are the implications of that?

posted by Nizhegorodov

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

ecofriend — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:22:24 GMT

@Clint: Thanks.

posted by ecofriend

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Avner Aharoni — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 04:53:17 GMT

@ecofriend: Express SKUs are not supported. you can download one of the trial version of Visual Studio from here http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/download

posted by Avner Aharoni

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Jules — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 13:19:44 GMT

Why did you choose to implement it so that an await statement can only be resumed once? For example you can't implement await on List (or most other monads for that matter):

async List CartesianProduct(List A, List B){
   var a = await A;
   var b = await B;
   return new Tuple(a,b);
}

posted by Jules

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Rabeeh Abla — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:02:06 GMT

Great work !

posted by Rabeeh Abla

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Algida — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:51:52 GMT

I'm sort of sad Because of parallel and async tasks I had an argument to start learning F#. Now I have only wait for new C#

posted by Algida

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Charles — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:21:29 GMT

@Algida: Well. Don't be sad! And do learn F#. Also, learn other forms of parallel and async expression in C# using Tasks and Rx and Concurrent Revisions So much to learn. So little time.
C

posted by Charles

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Algida — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:09:16 GMT

@Charles:Yup you are right, I just getting into current C# and .Net4, till I will get into f# there will be next c# it is so so little time to learn it

posted by Algida

Re: Anders Hejlsberg: Introducing Async – Simplifying Asynchronous Programming

Charles — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:50:13 GMT

@Algida: As Herb Sutter always says, learn as many languages as you can. Make it entertainment so you actually do it (if you don't enjoy it then it will be hard to be entertained by it).This allows you to express problems and solutions with more tools, some being better suited for the specific job at hand. More importantly, it teaches you how to think about programmming in multiple dimensions (like functional (F#) and imperative/hybrid (C#)).

You are right, of course. Start off with the fundamentals (just as reading music is to playing an intsrument or instruments in highly expressive ways). The music analogy only goes so far and some will be quick to point out the logical flaws therein, but you get the idea.

posted by Charles