Mastering Concurrency and Parallel Programming in C# (2025) requires a structured roadmap covering fundamental concepts, modern best practices, and advanced techniques. Hereβs your roadmap:
Phase 1: Fundamentals of Multithreading in C#
π Objective: Understand the basics of threading and concurrency.
πΉ Learn the Thread class in C#
πΉ Understand Thread Lifecycle (Create, Start, Sleep, Abort)
πΉ Work with Thread Synchronization (lock, Monitor, Mutex, Semaphore, AutoResetEvent, ManualResetEvent)
πΉ Avoid Race Conditions and Deadlocks
π Practice:
β
Write a program that starts multiple threads.
β
Implement a thread-safe counter using lock
.
Phase 2: Task-Based Asynchronous Programming (TAP)
π Objective: Move from manual threading to high-level abstractions.
πΉ Understand the Task Parallel Library (TPL)
πΉ Learn Task.Factory.StartNew(), Task.Run()
, Task.Delay()
πΉ Use ContinueWith
for chaining tasks
πΉ Implement Parallel.For, Parallel.ForEach, and Parallel.Invoke
π Practice:
β
Create an application that executes multiple tasks asynchronously.
β
Benchmark Thread
vs Task
.
Phase 3: Asynchronous Programming with async/await
π Objective: Write non-blocking code with async/await.
πΉ Understand async, await, Task, and ValueTask
πΉ Learn ConfigureAwait(false) for library development
πΉ Handle async exceptions using try/catch
πΉ Implement CancellationToken for Task cancellation
π Practice:
β
Convert synchronous file I/O operations to async versions.
β
Implement an API call using HttpClient
with async/await
.
Phase 4: Data Parallelism & PLINQ
π Objective: Process large collections in parallel.
πΉ Learn Parallel LINQ (PLINQ)
πΉ Understand AsParallel(), AsOrdered(), WithDegreeOfParallelism()
πΉ Use CancellationToken with PLINQ
π Practice:
β
Compare foreach
vs Parallel.ForEach()
.
β
Optimize database queries with PLINQ.
Phase 5: Advanced Concepts in Concurrency
π Objective: Master low-level concurrency control.
πΉ Implement Concurrent Collections (ConcurrentDictionary, ConcurrentBag, BlockingCollection)
πΉ Learn ReaderWriterLockSlim vs Monitor
πΉ Understand Thread Pooling and Work Stealing Algorithm
π Practice:
β
Build a producer-consumer pattern with BlockingCollection<T>
.
Phase 6: Performance Optimization & Debugging
π Objective: Learn to identify and fix performance issues.
πΉ Use BenchmarkDotNet for performance profiling
πΉ Debug concurrency issues with Parallel Stacks and Tasks window in Visual Studio
πΉ Understand Thread Affinity and Context Switching
π Practice:
β
Optimize an existing multi-threaded app to improve CPU utilization.
Phase 7: Real-World Application Development
π Objective: Apply concurrency techniques in enterprise applications.
πΉ Implement Scalable Background Services in ASP.NET Core
πΉ Use gRPC with concurrent calls
πΉ Design high-performance microservices with concurrency
π Practice:
β
Develop an API that processes multiple user requests in parallel.
β
Implement a real-time chat system using SignalR.
π― Final Goal:
Be proficient in designing and debugging highly concurrent, scalable, and efficient C# applications.
π
Top comments (0)