One of the advantages of a REST architecture is that is makes it much easier to implement cross-language bindings. To wit, Sriram Krishnan has created a set of Azure bindings for the concurrent programming language, Erlang.
Erlang is a language developed specifically for concurrent programming. It uses a message passing model and "processes" instead of threads. Erlang processes don't have a good corollary in platforms like .NET. They are lightweight, requiring much less memory than normal Windows threads. They are also cheap to run, with a cost comparable to a function call rather than a context switch. Code-wise, a process looks like a normal function paired with a message queue. The runtime pulls messages from the queues, passing them to the process's function one at a time.
If you are interested in learning more about Erlang, check out Sean Hinde's Erlang for C, C++ and Java Programmers. As for Siram's Erlang Bindings for Azure, they are available at Github.
