It's interesting to see the projects coming out of MSR. For example, back in 2005, MSR developed a
C# Software Transactional Memory at:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/Details/6cfc842d-1c16-4739-afaf-edb35f544384/Details.aspx. The goal of the library was for devs to develop multithreaded programs with shared resources without using locks.
In the October issue of
MSDN Magazine, we're presented a brief look into Microsoft's Parallel FX Library. Article can be found at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/10/futures/default.aspx. In an age of multi-core processors, the software infrastructure has yet to catch up. One measure of a great API is by contrasting the amount of pain suffered by implementing with and without that resource. I'm looking forward to the CTP. This and ScottGu's recent
announcement of ASP.NET MVC framework.