Async Programming Simplified in New Visual Studio CTP

Visual Studio Async CTP (Community Technology Preview) aims to make asynchronous programming more approachable so code is as easy to write and maintain as with synchronous code.

The Visual Studio Async CTP combines a new simple and composable pattern for asynchronous APIs, with “await” and "async" language keywords in Visual Basic and C#, that avoids asynchronous code being written inside-out using callbacks. The CTP is a painless install/uninstall on top of Visual Studio 2010 RTM, and comes with plenty of samples and documentation. We invite you to explore it and contribute your feedback.

The announcement was made in a blog post by S. Somasegar, senior vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, Making Asynchronous Programming Easy. He explains “With Async, our goal now is to make asynchronous programming far more approachable so asynchronous code is as easy to write and maintain as synchronous code. Making your code asynchronous should require only simple changes and should be possible to implement in a non-disruptive manner in your code. At the same time, it should be evident when code is ‘going async’ so that the inherently-concurrent nature of the method can be understood at a glance.”

The CTP includes significant language and framework enhancements in C# and Visual Basic that enable you to harness asynchrony. You retain the control flow from their synchronous code while developing responsive user interfaces and scalable web applications with greater ease.   This CTP delivers a lightweight asynchronous development experience as close to the standard synchronous paradigms as possible, while providing an easy on-ramp to the world of concurrency.

You can see more about how it works at Making Asynchronous Programming Easy.

Download it from the download center at Visual Studio Async CTP.

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation