Hey, should I use async-await or PipeTo(Self) in server actor message handlers that do calls to async methods? I read some akka.net info and decided to try PipeTo out but then saw this: > 'MetaReceiveActor.Self' is obsolete: 'Hiding ActorBase.Self on purpose because it is dangerous when used with .ConfigureAwait(false). Please use _self instead (from MetaReceiveActor).' does that mean that this (old) style:

_feedFactory.CreateFeedAsync(feed.FeedUri).PipeTo(Self);

from https://petabridge.com/blog/akkadotnet-async-actors-using-pipeto/ is not recommended? i was reading the newer info from https://petabridge.com/blog/async-await-vs-pipeto/ but understood that PipeTo might still be useful. i didn't read carefully yet though

It is generally better to do async await to avoid any concurrency issues inside the actor and keep the code simpler. If you need to do a long-running task in the background and you want to keep the actor mailbox open for new requests, you can use

ContinueTaskOnActorContext

instead of PipeTo. For example:

C#
// Run on thread pool and route back
 int MyComputeHeavyTask(int param)
 {
    return FindNextPrime(param);
 }
 ContinueTaskOnActorContext(Task.Run(() => MyComputeHeavyTask(param)), result => {}, failure => {});

 // Run deferred on background on the actor context (does not block the mailbox).
 async Task<int> MyLongRunningActorTaskAsync(int param)
 {
   await Task.Delay(1000);
   await EntityAskAsync<>(param);
   return 1;
 }
 ContinueTaskOnActorContext(MyLongRunningActorTaskAsync(param)), result => {}, failure => {});

yep i've been using ContinueTaskOnActorContext in PlayerActor a lot

And as the warning says, if you need to access Self, use

_self

in this case i'm sending a message from PlayerActor to another server entity which calls externals APIs and that can apparently take time

Maybe you can have a Queue or something then? Or multiple clients to call the api

hm, yes thanks for the ideas i guess i'll need to investigate how it is with that client actually