[ubercow13]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

So, atomically{} is basically like a SQL transaction and would repeat or signify failure if it cannot commit the changes you make inside the code block, similar to a CAS lock-free algorithm. This seems quite limited though, you are basically constrained to writing code within the atomic block that deals with value types only, and with no side-effects. Otherwise how would the compiler or runtime know how to roll it back?

That sounds useful but doesn't seem to cover all the use cases of thread synchronization by a long shot. Isn't it also the case that even knowing how to implement interesting alrogithms in a lock-free manner is an area of significant ongoing research? For example I think only recently someone worked out how to implement a lock-free ring buffer (https://ferrous-systems.com/blog/lock-free-ring-buffer/)