Professional .NET 2.0 Generics

Chapter 14. Power Collections

The .NET platform already provides developers with a rich set of generic types. And, though this collection represents a good start, there's always going to be room for improvement. In fact, a handful of teams have already been hard at work compiling their own generic libraries. Of all of these offerings, the Power Collections framework—the focus of this chapter—appears to have the most momentum and support from Microsoft. This library appears to draw its inspiration from a combination the C++ Standard Template Library and community input, extending the Base Class Library (BCL) with an Algorithms class and a series of new containers. This chapter digs into the details of this open source, continually evolving library. The chapter starts with a high-level, conceptual view of all the types in the library and follows that up with a detailed look at the mechanics of using each type.