The working groups of the C++0x committee are working hard to complete a major new standard for C++ (there's a big meeting here in Kona in October). If you're not intimate with C++, you may be surprised that such an important language has not had a standard threading model and that such a model is a major part of the C++0x version. This is actually part-and-parcel of the design philosophy that made C and C++ so important: the number of libraries dictated by the standard for C and C++ is much smaller than the BCL or Java's SE libraries. This allows standard C and C++ to be available for hundreds of processors.
I recently read the public C++0x papers on threading (links below). The proposed threading model is non-radical and is based on Boost.Thread. The reasonable perspective is that this is a conservative decision thoroughly in keeping with C/C++'s long tradition of minimal hardware/OS assumptions.
The emotional perspective is that they've let slip by a golden opportunity to incorporate the best thinking about memory models. "Multi-threading and locking" is, I would argue, demonstrably broken for business programming. It just doesn't work in a world of systems built from a combination of libraries and user-code; while you can create large applications based on this model, large multithreaded applications based on locking require not just care, but sophistication, at every level of coding. By standardizing an established systems-level model, C++0x foregoes an opportunity for leadership, albeit radical.
One of the real thought leaders when it comes to more sophisticated concurrency semantics is Herb Sutter. His Concur model (here's a \<a href="http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/TLN/TLN309_files/Default.htm%23nopreload%3d1%26autostart%3d1"" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">talk on Concur from PDC '05) is, I think, a substantial step forward and I've really hoped to see it influence language design. Is Sutter, though, just an academic with flighty thoughts and little understanding of the difficulties of implementation? It seems unlikely, given that he's the Chair of the ISO C++ standards committee. So you can see why there might have been an opportunity.
Multithreading proposals for C++0x:
- http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2007/n2320.html
- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2334.htm
- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2338.html
- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2381.html
- http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2382.html