6. Outlook

The development of the transactional programming model is a truly remarkable phenomenon, and one that we can learn a great deal from analyzing. First and foremost, it is an unprecedented industrial success, because it is the programming model for information systems, i.e. it concerns 80 to 90% of the population of all programmers. Transactional program execution environments have been the commercial spearhead of all computer manufacturers. These environments have had a profound influence on the structure of the underlying operating systems: the thread concept — of UNIX — is a direct result.

From a software engineering perspective, it's an exemplary illustration of the old adage "the function creates the tool". Publishers of tools and methods have often succumbed to the opposite temptation, which of course has systematically resulted in failure and frustration due...