If people are interested, here's some extra reading matter courtesy of reddit: <a href="http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/09/dining-philosophers-the-4th-solution/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bestinclass.dk/index.php/2009/09/dining-philosoph...</a> <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/theses/okasaki.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/theses/okasaki.pdf</a>
I really love his ideas, and think he's right on so much, but as for the question of STM, i'm gonna have to go with Cliff Click on this one:<p><a href="http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff-click/2008-05-27-clojure-stms-vs-locks" rel="nofollow">http://www.azulsystems.com/blog/cliff-click/2008-05-27-cloju...</a>