这是另一个很好的参考链接。 http://csharpindepth.com/Articles/Chapter2/Events.aspx

简单地说，本文的要点是——事件是对委托的封装。

引用自文章:

Suppose events didn't exist as a concept in C#/.NET. How would another class subscribe to an event? Three options: A public delegate variable A delegate variable backed by a property A delegate variable with AddXXXHandler and RemoveXXXHandler methods Option 1 is clearly horrible, for all the normal reasons we abhor public variables. Option 2 is slightly better, but allows subscribers to effectively override each other - it would be all too easy to write someInstance.MyEvent = eventHandler; which would replace any existing event handlers rather than adding a new one. In addition, you still need to write the properties. Option 3 is basically what events give you, but with a guaranteed convention (generated by the compiler and backed by extra flags in the IL) and a "free" implementation if you're happy with the semantics that field-like events give you. Subscribing to and unsubscribing from events is encapsulated without allowing arbitrary access to the list of event handlers, and languages can make things simpler by providing syntax for both declaration and subscription.

Event声明在委托实例上添加了一层抽象和保护。此保护可防止委托的客户端重置委托及其调用列表，并且仅允许从调用列表中添加或删除目标。

除了语法和操作属性之外，还有语义上的差异。

从概念上讲，委托是函数模板;也就是说，它们表达了一个函数必须遵守的契约，以便被认为是委托的“类型”。

事件代表……嗯,事件。它们的目的是在发生事情时提醒某人，是的，它们遵循委托定义，但它们不是同一件事。

即使它们是完全相同的东西(在语法上和IL代码中)，仍然会存在语义差异。一般来说，我更喜欢对两个不同的概念使用两个不同的名称，即使它们以相同的方式实现(这并不意味着我喜欢使用两次相同的代码)。

活动和代表之间的误解太大了!!委托指定TYPE(例如类或接口)，而事件只是一种成员(例如字段、属性等)。并且，就像任何其他类型的成员一样，事件也有类型。然而，在事件的情况下，事件的类型必须由委托指定。例如，不能声明由接口定义的类型的事件。

最后，我们可以做以下观察:事件的类型必须由委托定义。这是事件和委托之间的主要关系，在第二节中描述。18定义ECMA-335 (CLI)分区I到VI的事件:

在典型用法中，TypeSpec(如果存在)标识一个签名与传递给事件的fire方法的参数匹配的委托。

However, this fact does NOT imply that an event uses a backing delegate field. In truth, an event may use a backing field of any different data structure type of your choice. If you implement an event explicitly in C#, you are free to choose the way you store the event handlers (note that event handlers are instances of the type of the event, which in turn is mandatorily a delegate type---from the previous Observation). But, you can store those event handlers (which are delegate instances) in a data structure such as a List or a Dictionary or any other else, or even in a backing delegate field. But don’t forget that it is NOT mandatory that you use a delegate field.

An event in .net is a designated combination of an Add method and a Remove method, both of which expect some particular type of delegate. Both C# and vb.net can auto-generate code for the add and remove methods which will define a delegate to hold the event subscriptions, and add/remove the passed in delegagte to/from that subscription delegate. VB.net will also auto-generate code (with the RaiseEvent statement) to invoke the subscription list if and only if it is non-empty; for some reason, C# doesn't generate the latter.

Note that while it is common to manage event subscriptions using a multicast delegate, that is not the only means of doing so. From a public perspective, a would-be event subscriber needs to know how to let an object know it wants to receive events, but it does not need to know what mechanism the publisher will use to raise the events. Note also that while whoever defined the event data structure in .net apparently thought there should be a public means of raising them, neither C# nor vb.net makes use of that feature.

Delegate是一个类型安全的函数指针。事件是使用委托的发布者-订阅者设计模式的实现。