c# 7.0 - What is the point of having async Main?

Question

As we know, C#7 allows to make Main() function asynchronous.

What advantages it gives? For what purpose may you use async Main instead of a normal one?

Answer 1

It's actually C# 7.1 that introduces async main.

The purpose of it is for situations where you Main method calls one or more async methods directly. Prior to C# 7.1, you had to introduce a degree of ceremony to that main method, such as having to invoke those async methods via SomeAsyncMethod().GetAwaiter().GetResult().

By being able to mark Main as async simplifies that ceremony, eg:

static void Main(string[] args) => MainAsync(args).GetAwaiter().GetResult();

static async Task MainAsync(string[] args)
{
    await ...
}

becomes:

static async Task Main(string[] args)
{
    await ...
}

For a good write-up on using this feature, see C# 7 Series, Part 2: Async Main.