The author is right about inlining but has picked the wrong example to show this since the compiler cannot inline across await. If this function is in the hot

The author is right about inlining but has picked the wrong example to show this since the compiler cannot inline across await. If this function is in the hot path the last thing you'll want to do is to needlessly call await. You'll enter a suspension point and your task can get migrated to another thread. It is in no way comparable to the dead simple inlining example given later. This is why you should always benchmark before making guesses, and to double check you're even benchmarking the right thing. In this case they used the findings from a nonasync benchmark and applied it to async. This will lead you to a very wrong conclusion, and performance issues.