In a recent email from MSDN Flash, I first learned of the new Parallel Extensions to the .Net Framework 3.5. This is an out of band release that is currently available as a CTP on Microsoft Downloads.
The description in the MSDN Flash newsletter has me pretty excited about what this offers.
[Parallel Extensions] is a managed programming model for data parallelism, task parallelism, and coordination on parallel hardware unified by a common work scheduler.
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Parallel Extensions provides library-based support for introducing concurrency into applications written in with any .NET language, including but not limited to C# and Visual Basic.
It is specifically designed to take advantage of multi-core processors (among other things), which is important due to the recent (last 2 years) shift in the industry from raw clock speed to multi-core.
The computational power of multi-core processors, new programming models and platforms, and advanced research in usability all promise to change the way people interact with computers.
While excited, I do have some reservations. Encapsulating the lower level knowledge needed to take advantage of multiple cores will speed up development, but it will reduce the number of programmers who know how that lower level stuff needs to be written. The concepts used to take advantage of multi-cores, should be very similar to those required to take advantage of multi-threading, which is more "widely available" on the compact framework (although I am seeing more and more embedded computers with Core 2 Duo's). If this framework is only available for the full framework, the pool of skilled workers available for the compact framework could diminish (even more so).
I actually have more of a need to take advantage of multi-threading, and parallel processing in compact framework applications. As far as asp.net applications, I would like to see if this is something that would be recommended for them. Long running processes that would take advantage of this new framework, are usually best left outside the asp.net application. Speaking of long running processes, that is the 3rd area I work in, and in a traditional environment, would love to take advantage of this. However, the applications I am writing are all running on VMWare ESX, and IT has it set so that each VM only has a single CPU, and puts the burden of scheduling the 8 physical cores on ESX itself.
This will probably end up being something I try to work into personal projects. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to play with the CTP at this moment, but it is something I defiantly want to look into in the future.
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