concurrency

Four ways to guard a critical section in C#, and a decision matrix for picking one. Use System.Threading.Lock for synchronous mutual exclusion on .NET 9+, SemaphoreSlim when the section spans an await, and Monitor only when you need Wait/Pulse.

Three ways to push work onto the thread pool in C#, and which one to reach for. Use Task.Run for almost everything, ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem<TState> for allocation-free fire-and-forget, and Task.Factory.StartNew only for LongRunning or a custom scheduler.

When async/await is not enough: spawn a Dart isolate to run CPU-bound work off the UI thread. Isolate.run, Flutter's compute, long-lived workers with SendPort/ReceivePort, what can cross the boundary, and the JS/web caveat. Tested on Dart 3.11 and Flutter 3.27.1.

Use System.Threading.Lock for synchronous critical sections on .NET 9 and later. Understand compiler lowering, async restrictions and Monitor compatibility.

System.Threading.Channels is the async-first replacement for BlockingCollection in .NET 11. This guide shows how to migrate, how to choose bounded vs unbounded, and how to handle backpressure, cancellation, and graceful shutdown without deadlocking.