Lucian's VBlog

How do you combine MVVM with async? -- Well, really, there's not much to it. Just the same as always. Here's an example Silverlight MVVM project. It first shipped with the Async CTP, and I've updated it to use VS2012 and Microsoft.Bcl.Async. Download...

Talk: The New Async Design Patterns Async involves some new concepts. They're not difficult; just unfamiliar. Over the past year I've been watching how people use it. This talk distils out the three top async patterns and anti-patterns. Async...

Talk: Async Part 2 - for architects, under the hood This talk tackles some more advanced async topics. Async idioms - the "TAP" Task Asynchronous Pattern, when and when not to expose async APIs, the unexpected trouble with Task.Yield Integrating...

[This post is part of a series How to await a storyboard, and other things ] The normal behavior of the "await" operator on a task is to suspend execution of the method; then, when the task operand has finished, to resume execution on the same SynchronizationContext...

[This post is part of a series How to await a storyboard, and other things ] I want to invoke an external executable, and await until it’s finished, and get back its output. (In my case, the external executable is called “ tidy.exe ”...

I’m a big fan of supporting cancellation on async methods. I was recently wondering how to do this for HttpClient.GetStringAsync(). This post has some answers. Async Function TestAsync(uri As Uri , Optional cancel As CancellationToken = Nothing...

[This post is part of a series How to await a storyboard, and other things ] Sometimes we want to await until a button has been clicked. Once place where this is useful is, for instance, when displaying the message “Click button to continue”...

[This post is part of a series How to await a storyboard, and other things ] In my app, I want to await a drag operation. Here’s how I’d like to await it: Private Async Sub rectangle1_PointerPressed(sender As Object , e As PointerRoutedEventArgs...

[This post is part of a series How to await a storyboard, and other things ] Let’s look at making MediaElement awaitable. This is the kind of idiom I’d like to use: Try Await mediaElement1.OpenAsync( New Uri ( "ms-appx:///Assets...

This post is part of a series about an important new design pattern, awaiting events ... I also made a Channel9 video introduction " Async Over Events ". In this blog series: How to await a storyboard, and other things How to await a MediaElement...

Sometimes people ask the question “How can I serialize a Task?” If you try, it throws a SerializationException: Dim t = TestAsync() Using stream As New MemoryStream Dim formatter As New Formatters.Binary. BinaryFormatter formatter...

We all know that async methods return Task or Task(Of T): Async Function GetNameAsync() As Task ( Of String ) Await Task .Delay(10) Return "ernest" End Function Sometimes, advanced users ask for the ability to return different types out of an async...

In VS2012 we fixed some method-resolution problems from VS2010. These were method-calls that failed to compile in VS2010, but now compile cleanly in VS2012. VB: Dim numbers As IEnumerable ( Of Integer ) = {1, 2, 3} Sub f( Of T )(x As T ) Sub...

On June 6th I'll be speaking at the Norway Developer Conference in Oslo, on the subject "How we do language design at Microsoft (VB/C#)". It will cover topics like how we designed Async, how we run our week-to-week language design process, where we get...

[UPDATE: The async targeting pack has been renamed " Microsoft.Bcl.Async ". It now supports async for portable libraries] We’ve just released an " Async Targeting Pack ” [update: replaced by Microsoft.Bcl.Async ] via NuGet. It lets you...

Talk: Async Part 1 - the message-loop, and the Task type After giving lots of training and talks over the past two years, this is my most recent take on how to explain Async. The message-loop is fundamental. You can't understand async unless...

Talk: What's new in VB11 This talk details some of what's new in VB11. (Just some: there were too many improvements to cover them all in just one talk). Win8 support VBCore (=> new platform support for VB on Phone, XNA, MicroFramework, Kinect, Surface...

The AsyncCTP is getting a bit long in the tooth. This post is to explain how, why, and what to do. Common symptoms: AsyncCTP fails to install -- i.e. it doesn't create the "Async CTP" folder inside "My Documents", and VS doesn't recognize the...

The third version of the Async CTP was released on 31st October 2011. The reason for releasing v3 is to address installation issues -- a recent Windows Update had conflicted with the Async CTP v2 and stopped it working, or prevented its installation...

The VB/C# team is hard at work on the Async feature... You might already have download the Async CTP yourself, or tried out async in the VS11 Developer Preview , and you might wonder: "The feature seems complete already -- so what are they still...

Talk: What's new in VB10 (VS2010) This talk details the new VB language features that arrived in VS2010 -- Implicit Line Continuations - http://www.unemployedunderscores.com/ Array Literals Collection Initializers Auto-implemented Properties Multi...

Talk: How to write an [Async] connected app for Windows Phone 7.1 This talk is all about writing a connected app for the Windows Phone. The talk covered: (1) Azure/WP7 toolkit for the server-side of the phone app. Most good phone apps will need some...

Talk: The [Async] Future of VB and C# I gave a C#-specific version of this talk at DevConnections in Las Vegas, USA on 2011.11.01 This talk is mainly about Async and goes into considerable technical depth. It also covers the new CallerInfo...

This blog article has been moved and enhanced: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lucian/archive/2011/05/20/talk-how-to-write-an-async-connected-app-for-windows-phone-7.aspx

Async CTP Refresh - mitigations when using the CTP The preceding four blog posts have outlined the known and unknown bug areas in the CTP. Now it's time to set out some concrete mitigation strategies. Use F# instead F# already shipped in VS2010...