The Moth

Having done a lot of real world work with threading in the .NET Framework including working with the numerous limitations of NETCF v1.0 (inc. implementing the BackgroundWorker for it), I read with interest Sam's parallel computing blog post to see what links there would be in there and I wasn't disappointed. Check it out if you are new to threading in the managed world. That reminded me about a related topic that I keep mentioning at the end of my LINQ presentations and that I've been meaning to blog about in response to Tim's question: Parallel LINQ (PLINQ).

One of the numerous benefits of LINQ is the move to declarative programming, which has side benefits over and beyond the obvious ones. By writing code that tells the engine what it is that we want it to do rather than how to go about it, we open new possibilities where the engine can take our intent and split/execute it on multiple threads/cores (since ultimately it is responsible on the how). While most devs "get" that, it may sound a bit woolly to others, so here are some links/info about PLINQ.

I believe the first mention of PLINQ is in this eWeek article (August 2006). Joe Duffy announced his involvement (September 2006) and then followed it up with more info and a slide deck (January 2007). Bart watched a presentation on the topic and spills the beans on the AsParallel extension method which he follows with a NON-Plinq code example (April 2007). Finally, watch a real 5' demo by Luca from Tech Ed [between 51:26-56:40] (May 2007).

Of course, it is early days and PLINQ will not ship with VS2008 (or even as part of the wider Orcas-wave) but you get the idea... The earlier you start taking advantage of LINQ, the earlier you'll be able to take advantage of PLINQ when it eventually ships ;)