Developer Update for April

Microsoft as ever have been busy with new drops and SP1 refreshes of technology for us all to embrace and here is a summary update for this month

The Microsoft F# (2.0.0.0), April 2011 Community Technology Preview is available here

While not all new if you are looking at F# I would suggest keeping an eye on

F# PowerPack

F# Samples

F# Developer Center

For learning F# check out the Try F# tutorials here

Anders announced that in the new generation of the .Net languages at PDC 2010 more compiler automation of classic tasks in this case Async functions and beyond will be possible. You can watch it here. The SP1 previews of the new compilers are available now (see below)

C# Language Specification for Asynchronous Functions get it here

VB Language Specification for Asynchronous Functions get it here

A general overview of  Asynchrony in .NET is available as a Whitepaper here

Visual Studio Async CTP including the language changes (SP1 Refresh) get it here

a related useful read is Task-based Asynchronous Pattern which is a new pattern for asynchrony get it here

another interesting document is Introduction to TPL Dataflow which is a library for building parallel and concurrent applications get is here

It is useful to note that while not encouraged the EULA does allow for production use (but on your own head be it)

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