Summary

This chapter gave you the basics of delegates and events. You learned how to declare a delegate and add methods to the delegate list. You also learned the process of declaring event handlers to respond to an event, as well as how to create a custom event and use the patterns for raising the event.

As a .NET developer, you will be using delegates and events extensively, especially when developing Windows Forms applications. Events are the means that the .NET developer has to monitor the various Windows messages that occur while the application is executing. Otherwise, you would have to monitor the WndProc and catch the WM_MOUSEDOWN message instead of getting the mouse Click event for a button.

The use of delegates and events in the design of a large application can reduce dependencies and the coupling of layers. This allows you to develop components that have a higher reusability factor.