Quick tip: how did the async methods in C# 5.0 work, again?

A quick tip post for today: if you've migrated to Visual Studio 2012 already, you've without doubt started working with C# 5.0's new asynchronous features and the new async and await keywords. But as you're learning how to best use these new features, a quick recap is in order.

On MSDN, there's a nice page titled "Asynchronous Programming with Async and Await" talking about how asynchronous methods work, and the best of all, it has a nice illustration graphic on the steps that happen when you use these keywords.

To find the graphic, open the topic on MSDN, scroll down about one-third, and take a look at the section "What Happens in an Async Method".

In case you are interested in more details, take a look at the C# Language Specification. If you have Visual Studio 2012 installed, you can also find the specification locally, usually in the following folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC#\Specifications\1033

Now, the section 7.7.7 talks about this; the section is titled "Await expressions".

Enjoy less-synchronous coding!