New generic TaskFactory.StartNew<T> API

[djechelon]

Hi,

I would like to suggest to add an additional overload to TaskFactory

To the existing

 StartNew(Action<Object>, Object, CancellationToken, TaskCreationOptions, TaskScheduler)

I would add

 StartNew(Action<T>, T, CancellationToken, TaskCreationOptions, TaskScheduler)

The reason is not to force the developer to do runtime checks and casts when the invoked method accepts an object (or a collection) of type T which is well-known at compile time

Current code:

 private void Insert(Object state)
        {
            var entities = state as IEnumerable<Entity>;
            using (var context = GetDataContext())
            {
                context.entities.AddRange(entities);
                context.SaveChanges();
            }
        }

Task.Factory.StartNew(Insert, entityList); //invoked with

Desiderata:

 private void Insert(IEnumerable<Entity> entities)
        {
            using (var context = GetDataContext())
            {
                context.entities.AddRange(entities);
                context.SaveChanges();
            }
        }

Task.Factory.StartNew(Insert, entityList); //invoked with

[svick]

What's wrong with using a closure? I.e.:

Task.Factory.StartNew(() => Insert(entityList));

I believe the object overloads exist mostly so that you can avoid closure allocations. Since it's a performance optimization, convenience does not matter much.

Also, looking at the source code, I think doing this would require pretty significant changes to the implementation.

[alexperovich]

I have no problem with adding the API if it can be done without significant change. If it requires large changes then I don't think it is worth it.

For now this functionality can be added via an extension method on TaskFactory.