Patterns and best practices

It is possible to draw parallels with and even convert from the classic threading and eventing patterns while implementing asynchronous tasks. However, async methods have to be implemented with caution to avoid deadlocks and uncaught exceptions.

Async pattern conversions

The Observer pattern—also known as the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern (EAP)—used to be the main development tool for long running processes and service/remote application APIs. Events and delegates still make up a considerable amount of UI-related implementation in modern applications.

However, asynchronous tasks and awaitables provide a much more convenient way to deal with long running processes and chain completion methods.

Fortunately, it is possible to implement conversion patterns from other async patterns to task-based implementations. These types of scenarios involve using the TaskCompletionSource class.

In order to demonstrate this, we will be using a simplified version of...