Chapter 12

1. When you need to execute some long-running, CPU-intensive code, manually creating a dedicated thread is the preferred choice. Another option is to create a Task with TaskCreationOptions.LongRunning or, in most advanced scenarios, to write a custom task scheduler.
2. The most performant synchronization techniques are those not using kernel objects but user-mode objects. In order to atomically write both a file and some value in memory, the Critical Section is the most appropriate technique and is available through the lock keyword of the C# language.
3. The Task.Delay API is the most appropriate delay because it schedules the code in the continuation after the specified number of milliseconds, letting the thread be reused in the meantime. Conversely, the operating system Sleep API is exposed in .NET as Thread.Sleep, which suspends the thread execution for the given number of milliseconds, but it makes the thread unavailable from being reused.
4. The Task library...