How do I know when to use async?

You should use async when you need to perform an operation that takes time to complete, such as making a network request, reading from a file, or accessing a database. This will prevent your application from blocking while waiting for the operation to finish.

Here are some key scenarios when async is beneficial:

• Improving User Experience: When dealing with long-running operations, async allows your application to remain responsive. The user can continue interacting with the application while the background operation completes.
• Optimizing Performance: async helps you avoid blocking threads, which can improve the overall performance of your application, especially when dealing with multiple concurrent tasks.
• Simplifying Code: Using async and await makes your code more readable and easier to understand. It allows you to write asynchronous code that looks and feels like synchronous code.

Example:

Imagine a web application that needs to fetch data from an API. Using async allows the application to continue processing user input while waiting for the data to be fetched. Without async, the application would freeze until the data is retrieved, resulting in a poor user experience.

In summary: async is a powerful tool for handling asynchronous operations and improving the performance and responsiveness of your application. Use it whenever you need to perform operations that might take time and don't want to block the main thread.