c# 5 await/async pattern in API design

Question

How can the c# 5 await/async pattern boost the expressiveness of new APIs that deals with coroutines (as Jon Skeet shows in recent posts), or with the actor model?

Answer 1

As you mentioned, Jon Skeet's has been discussing Coroutines using the Async CTP, so I will skip that portion of your question...

The actor model is actually being addressed in the Async CTP via TPL Dataflow. This is a new library using the Task classes which allows for a form of the Actor model as well as many other data flow and similar scenarios. Since it's based around the Task and Task<T> classes, it also integrates perfectly with await/async very nicely.