Has the Reactive Extensions library been discontinued?

Question

The documentation for much of the Reactive Extensions library on Microsoft's website says "We're no longer updating this content regularly. Check the Microsoft Product Lifecycle for information about how this product, service, technology, or API is supported."

Furthermore, searching for some basic Reactive Extensions class names (such as "Subject") in the main documentation site returns no hits. The only hits come in the "Previous Versions" section of the site.

There is no mention of Reactive Extensions in the linked "Product Lifecycle" page.

Does this mean that Microsoft are no longer supporting Reactive Extensions, or have I missed something?

The *old docs* have been discontinued. You're looking at a page under the `Previous Versions` heading — Panagiotis Kanavos, Jan 14 '20 at 15:05
Indeed, but the "new docs" have absolutely no reference to Reactive Extensions. They're only visible in the Previous Versions section. I've edited my post to make this clear. — James Cane, Jan 14 '20 at 15:06

Panagiotis Kanavos · Answer 1 · 2020-01-14T15:17:35.440

7

No, it hasn't. You're looking at a page under the Previous Version heading. That's why the warning is shown.

Reactive Extensions is a separate OSS project, and only the .NET implementation can be found under the dotnet organization. The ReactiveX org contains many other implementations. If you check its Github repo you'll see the latest commit was yesterday. The latest version 4.3.2 was released to NuGet 20 days ago

The project's documentation page is http://reactivex.io/.

The project covers many languages, not just .NET. In fact, Reactivex.JS is probably THE most active edition, and most JavaScript developers don't even know Rx was created by Microsoft.

Rx is not deployed as part of .NET but then, neither is EF, EF Core, or any of a number of libraries people think as part of .NET. Lately, even Microsoft.Data.SqlClient became a separate package.

Since 4.x, many libraries became packages to reduce the runtime size and allow independent development.

edited Jan 14 '20 at 15:17

answered Jan 14 '20 at 15:08

Panagiotis Kanavos

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Ah. So Microsoft no longer include it as part of .Net? Or, Microsoft no longer support documentation for it? – James Cane Jan 14 '20 at 15:09
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Neither (it never was *part* of .NET in any case). It's a separate OSS project, developed and supported by *many* people and organizations. Check the correct landing page http://reactivex.io/ – Panagiotis Kanavos Jan 14 '20 at 15:14
However the interfaces IObservable & IObserver are included in .Net and can be used for public API without Rx being exposed! – Felix Keil Jan 20 '20 at 06:19
@FelixKeil IObservable is to Rx what IEnumerable is to LINQ. Simply using the interface gives none of the features of the library, nor does it say anything about its support status – Panagiotis Kanavos Jan 20 '20 at 09:34
@PanagiotisKanavos I am in total consent with you. This is just an important info for application design and may be a key point for the decision in using Rx. – Felix Keil Jan 20 '20 at 12:38

Has the Reactive Extensions library been discontinued?

1 Answers1