How to Parallelize Your Application - Part 2 Threads v Tasks

In Part 2 of this series, ISV Architect Evangelist Bruce Kyle, explores the differences between Threads and System.Threading.Tasks in .NET 4.

In this three part series, see how you can use new features in .NET Framework 4 to take advantage of multi-core processors.

• In Part 1 of the series, we show why you care about multiple processors and how it can effect the performance in your application.
• In Part 2 we compare the new Tasks feature in .NET with Threads.
• In Part 3 we show three ways of using the parallel features to enable your application for multi-core processors.

For more information and to see the code used in the video, see How to Get Started with Multi-Core: Parallel Processing You Can Use.

See also, Justin Etheredge's posting .NET 4.0 and System.Threading.Tasks for detail look at how to use Tasks in your applications.

To find out how to use Task asynchronously for operations such as file IO and accessing Web Services, see how Jeffrey Richter uses his AsychEnumerator with Task in his blog posting, Using .NET 4.0 Tasks with the AsyncEnumerator or see it in action at Jeffrey Richter and his AsyncEnumerator on Channel 9.

Other parallel computing resources:

• Microsoft.com
  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/R2.aspx
• MSDN Concurrency Dev-Center
  
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/concurrency
• Dev-Team Blogs
  http://blogs.msdn.com/pfxteam
  http://blogs.technet.com/winserverperformance
  http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/labels/ParallelComputing.html
  

For up to date information for developers and ISVs, see US ISV Developer Community Blog