By John K. Waters
Microsoft has quietly released the first key components of its .NET Reactive Framework (Rx), which allows developers to write LINQ (Language Integrated Query) expressions against events. Components of the Rx framework were included in the latest drop of the Silverlight Toolkit last month. A complete version is expected to be part of Visual Studio 2010 and will be supported by the .NET Framework 4.
The Rx Framework consists of a pair of interfaces (IObserver/IObservable), which represent “push-based” observable collections, along with a library of extension methods that implement Microsoft’s LINQ Standard Query Operators and other stream transformation functions, according to Erik Meijer, the well-known language designer who runs the Data Programmability Languages Team at Microsoft. Meijer outlined .NET Rx Framework during a session at the recent O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in San Jose, Calif. Observable collections capture the essence of the subject/observer design pattern, Meijer said, and are especially useful for dealing with event-based and asynchronous programming, such as you see in AJAX applications.
