Question

Given a Task t, is there any semantic difference between

t.ContinueWith(ante => DoSomethingWith(ante));

and

t.ContinueWith(ante => DoSomethingWith(t));

, assuming that t is not mutated later?

Does the antecedent argument exist only to avoid the allocation of a closure as in the second variant?

Answer 1

Does the antecedent argument exist only to avoid the allocation of a closure as in the second variant?

Effectively, yes. It also lets you write this more succinctly as:

 Task.Factory.StartNew( () => DoSomething())
             .ContinueWith( t => DoSomethingWith(t));

It also provides a similar API to using TaskFactory.ContinueWhenAll or TaskFactory.ContinueWhenAny.