Some time ago I tried playing with Task Parallel Library, but eventually it appeared that TPL is not applicable in this scenario.
This time I've found Rx Extensions and I really liked the approach. My task with sequential background execution is solved with the help of the extensions quite gracefully (here is simplified version):
var service = new PingService("google.com");
// Every second the ping service will be called from background thread, producing a sequence of metrics
var metrics = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1))
.Select(i => service.Execute());
// Consuming the sequence of metrics and updating UI
subscription = metrics.Subscribe(
metric => Console.WriteLine(metric.RoundtripTime),
exception => Console.WriteLine(exception.Message));
Applying Rx Extensions drastically simplified the service itself and program environment as additionally I got rid of events and handlers, I am satisfied with the changes it brought. In my scenario it looks like a simple messaging bus between services and their consumers.
I'm pretty confident that Reactive Extensions can change your attitude to composing asynchronous and event-based programs (as it once happened with invention of LINQ for data querying). More on Rx can be found on MSDN, 101 Samples, IntroToRx.
Hi there!