Hour 23. Understanding Threads, Concurrency, and Parallelism

What You’ll Learn in This Hour: Understanding Threads and Threading Concurrency and Synchronization Understanding the Task Parallel Library Working with Parallel LINQ Potential Pitfalls

So far, all the applications you have written, and most software that exists today, were designed for single-threaded execution. This is mainly because the programming model of single-threaded execution reduces complexity and is easier to code. However, as processor technology continues to evolve from single-core to multicore architectures, it is more common for applications to begin taking advantage of the benefits of multiple threads and multiple cores. Unfortunately, using multiple threads and cores brings with it an entirely new set of problems and complexity. The .NET Framework, through the parallel computing platform, simplifies the task of writing applications that can take advantage of multiple threads and cores. This platform forms the basis of the multi-threading capabilities provided by the .NET Framework, such as the managed thread pool, and includes parallel implementations of the common loop instructions, LINQ to Objects, and new thread-safe collections.