You might not need to use multi-threading in all of your C# applications but as a modern software developer, you should make this part of your toolkit.

  • Wikipedia best explains what thread is.  It also explains the difference between threads and processes and delves into the topic of multi-threading as well, which is what thread is for.
  • Benefits of using multi-threading:
    • To maintain a responsive user interface.
    • To perform CPU bound work while waiting for I/O operations to complete.
    • To scale the application using parallel execution.
  • Price to pay for  using multi-threading:
    • Slower execution time on single-processor machines due to context switching.
    • Added program complexity.
  • Threading (C#) at Microsoft docs describes the basic concurrency and synchronization mechanisms provided by the .NET Framework, but not much example C# code though.
  • Threading in C# by Joseph Albahari is a good one as it provides example C# code.  It goes through the basics of threading and synchronization in C# which would help you get started writing C# code.  Then it talks about the event-based asynchronous pattern (EAP) and lastly about parallel programming.
  • C# Programming Examples on Threads is the simplest C# codes I found on C# threading.
  • Microsoft recommends using the task-based asynchronous pattern (TAP) though.  The async and await keywords in C# support TAP.  So I think it would be best to focus on this instead of the older patterns like the event-based asynchronous pattern (EAP) and the asynchronous programming model (APM).
  • Parallel Processing and Concurrency in the .NET Framework in Microsoft docs contains links to information about threading, asynchronous programming patterns (both legacies and new) and parallel programming.
  • For parallel programming, the Task Parallel Library (TPL) is the center of it all and would be wise to get familiar on this library.