The difference between Task.Factory.FromAsync and BeginX/EndX?

Question

I have very similar code when using the standard BeginRead and EndRead methods from the TcpClient and using Task.Factory.FromAsync.

Here are some examples.. Error handli

Answer 1

I would much rather see Task<T> based code:

• It provides for composition more easily; for example, it's reasonably easy to write a method which takes a collection of Task<T> tasks and returns another task which represents the majority verdict of those tasks. Likewise you can wait until any one of a collection of tasks has completed, etc.
• It provides more flexible scheduling of where the continuation is run.
• It allows the task itself to be returned with type safety and a lot more information than the somewhat anaemic IAsyncResult type returned by BeginRead.
• It's simpler to specify error handling and cancellation with tasks than using the Begin/End model.
• Task<T> is getting better language support in C# 5 with async/await - if your codebase already uses Task<T> pervasively, it'll be much easier to take advantage of this

Basically in modern code running on .NET 4, Task<T> is the idiomatic way of representing an on-going task. It's a much richer environment to work in than earlier attempts, and I would embrace it if you have the chance. Obviously if you're using .NET 3.5 or earlier, life is a bit harder, but I'm assuming that as you're asking the question, Task<T> is an option...