Question

I have a background tick function that is structured as follows:

    System.Threading.Thread myTimerThread = new Thread(this.Tick);

    private void Tick(){
       do{
          //do stuff
          System.Threading.Sleep(1000L);
       }while(true)    
    }

However, there is also a System.Threading.Timer class that does this for me. What are the differences in using the built in Timer class present in System.Threading rather than creating my own background thread with a Tick function?

Answer 1

The Timer class would be very light weight and more efficient as compared to your own dedicated thread which is sleeping for a specified time inside infinite do while loop.

Do read Thread.Sleep is a sign of a poorly designed program for finding out how Thread.Sleep actually works and how it wastes a complete thread and resources

On the other hand System.Threading.Timer will use ThreadPool thread to execute the timer. Other benefit of using Timer class as described my MSDN

When you create a timer, you can specify an amount of time to wait before the
first execution of the method (due time), and an amount of time to wait between
subsequent executions (period). You can change these values, or disable the timer, using the Change method.

You won’t have these benefits in thread based approach