C# async and F# async

C# 5.0 proposed a new feature async/await. I am not totally surprised to know that C# borrow this idea from F#. Again, I am happy I can grab this idea quicker than C# background persons, just like what I did when learning LINQ.. :-)

One difference I noticed today is the sleep feature. If you do Thread.Sleep(xxx) in C#'s async function, it actually turns it into a synchronous call. But for F#, the function call is still an async function call. The following code is a sample. In the C# version, if you use the Thread.Sleep(5000), there will be a warning indicate the function call is actually a sync call. I would have to say C# feature is not perfect, because C# use static checking to decide if it is async or sync and totally delay the check to runtime.

F# version:

 let slowComputation = async {  
   System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);  
   return "aa"  
   }  
 let f() = async {  
   let! v = slowComputation  
   printfn "result = %s" v  
   }  
 f()  
 |> Async.Start  
 printfn "about to wait..."  
 System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(15000);  
 printfn "Done"  

C# version:

 class Program  
   {  
     public async Task<string> SlowComputaton()  
     {  
       await Task.Delay(5000);  
       //Thread.Sleep(5000);  
       return "aaa";  
     }  
     public async void F()  
     {  
       var x = await SlowComputaton();  
       Console.WriteLine(x);  
     }  
     static void Main(string[] args)  
     {  
       var p = new Program();  
       p.F();  
       Console.WriteLine("about to wait...");  
       Thread.Sleep(15 * 1000);  
       Console.WriteLine("Done");  
     }  
   }  

Tweet to fsharp