In the last chapter, we used Threading to execute a method concurrently in our application. We can do the same using Asynchronous Programming as well:

In the video you saw that we didn't explicitly run the `timerLabel.Text = …` statement in the main thread. This will be explained in a bit.

So you might be wondering, what's the difference between Asynchronous Programming and Multi-Threading? Well, it is fundamentally how the two different features work.

If you recall from the previous courses, we had discussed Asynchronous Programming, and we also learnt how to use it in our applications, however, we didn't deeply explore how it exactly worked on a lower level. 

In **Threading**, we manually create **new** threads to run methods on them for the sake of executing those methods concurrently or parallel to the main thread, and the threads as a whole are dedicated to running those methods. It is also our responsibility to correctly free (delete) the threads and to make sure that there is no conflict between the threads - which we will learn more about in the next chapter.

In **Asynchronous Programming**, we can run the methods concurrently as well, however, in this case we don't deal with threads manually. So what's happening on the backend? The .NET framework is responsible for **assigning** and **unassigning** threads to different **tasks** when they are executed **asynchronously**. It is important to note that asynchronous programming does not create new threads, instead, it assigns free threads to different **tasks** from the **Thread Pool**.

**Thread Pool** is a collection of pre-allocated threads that are managed by **.NET**. These threads are ready and waiting to execute tasks. The thread pool is created automatically by **.NET** when your application starts up.

So, when the program encounters an **asynchronous task**, it is assigned to an available thread from the **Thread Pool**. It is also possible that in certain cases the task is executed over multiple different threads. For example, **I/O (input - output) operations**, like reading or writing to a file, are performed at a very low level, closer to the CPU, where the concept of threads doesn't exist. So the operations are not bound to any specific thread and hence don't block any specific thread while being performed.

There won't necessarily be a one-to-one mapping from task to threads; therefore, it generally depends upon what kind of operation is being performed. It is completely managed by .NET itself, and we usually don't have to care about the background details. Just like in the video, we didn't explicitly execute the property assignment statement `timerLabel.Text = …` in the main thread. **.NET** automatically decides and assigns relevant threads to relevant parts of the methods.

You can see a brief demonstration in the following video:

So now that we have an idea of how it works on the backend, it is a good time to ask, what is the practical difference between them? And when should we use threading or asynchronous programming?

**Asynchronous Programming** is based around creating and **executing Tasks**. While **Threading** is based around creating and **managing Threads**.

While similar results can be achieved by using either method, both of those methods are meant for very different things.

**Async Programming** is useful specifically for I/O bound tasks that need to be performed concurrently without blocking the main program. For-example, while retrieving some data from a file, an API, or a database, the main thread can be blocked, but we can use asynchronous methods to wait for the completion of these tasks concurrently, and **retrieve the results** of the tasks when the tasks are eventually completed. 

**Threading** on the other hand is more suitable for longer, more expensive operations that are CPU bound. For-example complex lengthy calculations, image or video processing, or simply something like playing a video or audio while keeping the program responsive. We can also assign multiple resource intensive operations to multiple different threads, maximizing the performance.

True or False: Asynchronous Programming always creates new threads for each task.

Which approach is typically more suitable for improving responsiveness in applications with I/O-bound tasks?

Which of the following tasks is more suitable for Asynchronous Programming?

What is the difference between Asynchronous Programming and Multi-Threading?

In this course, we will learn about some advanced C# concepts along with MAUI, which is an application development library. We will learn how to create some interesting GUI applications while keeping them quick and responsive using techniques like Threading. We will make applications that will interact user input and APIs, and apart from that, we will cover some important C# concepts like Reflection and Generics. This course will further improve our programming skills and will give us a strong foundation to move forward towards Web Development.

In this section, we will learn what MAUI is, and how to set up a .NET MAUI application. We will also look at the structure of an MAUI application, and in the end, we will learn how to add some basic elements to our UI. This section will prepare us for the rest of the course where we will be working with more practical concepts.

In this section we will learn about delegates, events and data binding. Using this knowledge we will learn how to make interesting interactive GUI applications.

In this section, we will learn what Threading is and how to use it to keep our applications responsive, and run smoothly while performing resource intensive tasks. We will see how to differs from other similar concepts on C# and what are good practices when implementing Threading in our application. There will also be some interesting tasks to help us in understand this concept on a deeper level.

In this section, we will learn how to make more robust methods, classes and other objects which can work multiple types of input data types, by first learning about Generics and how to implement generic classes, then we will move on to Reflection and how to use reflection for further improving the capabilities of our programs.

Advanced C# with .NET

Asynchronous Programming vs Threading

Advanced C# with .NET

Asynchronous Programming vs Threading