This article is from the FAQ, by with numerous contributions by others.
Futures are used in concurrent programming to return results from a
concurrent computation, even before they have been calculated. The result
can then be passed around as any other value, and only when an attempt is
made to access it, the reader will be blocked until the result is made
available by the concurrent computation. Based on the existing BETA
facilities, futures can easily be implemented, and an experimental futures
library is available as part of the current system.
 
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