Is using AsyncTask still recommended for loading listView items in the background?

Question

Background

I\'ve heard that there are some new solutions for loading data in the background which are more recommended than AsyncTask (like loaders).

The prob

Answer 1

Maybe you should consider reviewing your approach, the need you have for performing several updates depending on the view and cancel all the pending tasks from the previous views gives the impression that you are performing the load of data individually for every view that needs to be created.

In a list view with a list adapter, the usual approach is to load a portion of the data (either as list of ValueObject or as Cursor from multiple database rows) paginated on demand or in one goal, not item by item. So if you wish to update the next page, you basically perform one single operation, either using AsyncTask or Loaders to fetch the new items to the model then making it available for the UI to display them. This way, you will be applying MVC, and you won't have several pending tasks to cancel and control, and your structure would be more solid and easier to manage.

About the alternatives, If you're dealing with database, the most straightforward way is to use the CursorLoader, i.e. the loaders instead of AsyncTask, but if you're dealing with data that comes from the network or filesystem, you're kinda free to choose from the variety of other options available. AsyncTask is much more simpler to use, mostly recommended for simple things or one shot queries. But you can also use Loaders for such tasks as well, see AsyncTaskLoader.