Professional .NET 2.0 Generics

14.1. A Little History

The origins of the Power Collections framework are somewhat interesting. In traversing the blogs, it appears as though there was some fairly early cooperation between members of the Microsoft and Power Collections teams. Microsoft was essentially looking for new generic types that could be used to extend the BCL and they approached the Power Collections team with the idea of launching a community-based project that would focus on the creation of .NET generic types.

Since this effort was launched, Microsoft has continued to participate in the evolution of this framework. This, of course, has some wondering if the types from the Power Collections library will ultimately find their way into the BCL. There are two schools of thought on this subject. One camp believes moving these types into the BCL will promote the standardization of a broader set of generic types. Others seem to think the Power Collections library should remain independent and free to advance on its own. My belief is that the Power Collections framework will continue to be a proving ground for the continued evolution of generic types, with portions of the library eventually migrating into the BCL.