Abstract:
If you're a [web] developer, the next couple of years will prove to be interesting times. A November 2012 survey [1] confirms that Internet users, at least shoppers, are expecting instant gratification in their online experiences. The survey reports that 61% of the surveyed shoppers abandoned a web page after waiting at least 30 seconds [2].

What is a [web] developer to do? After all, we have multiple sources of data that must be accessed to render a page: profiles, catalogs, metrics, comments, and histories just to name a few. Accessing all these data sources takes time. Let's also not forget about the latency of making the round-trip from the browser to the server.

Now be honest. As developers we always have a solution even before we completely understand the problem. Weren't you thinking "obviously asynchronous processing" as you read the above paragraphs? Asynchronous processing would be my first thought and in this presentation, I'd like to look at using a technique called Futures and explore how using them allows us to write asynchronous code that parallels the synchronous solution [3].

[1] http://blog.monitis.com/index.php/2012/11/21/monitis-survey-finds-more-than-half-of-frequent-online-shoppers-have-cancelled-an-order-due-to-slow-response-time/
[2] I'll admit that, in general, 30 seconds it really a long time so, maybe, picture all this happening on a mobile browser and play along for the moment.
[3] With some caveats of course.

Bio:
Michael Levy is the Microsoft Practice Director for Strategic Data Systems (SDS). Mike has been delivering software solutions to clients, in a variety of industries, for over 20 years. He is an active participate in the software community and, through the years, has spoken on a variety of topics at multiple conferences and user groups. As you read this, Mike is probably in front of a computer practicing the ancient art of Sleeping with Your Eyes Open when he should be working on the presentation.