Thread Synchronization (Was Re: Sockets vs. net connection)

From: William Kempf (sirwillard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-01-03 10:49:09

--- In boost_at_[hidden], Bill Klein <bill_at_o...> wrote:
> A while back there was talk about adding some thread primitives to
> boost. Did this go anywhere (can't remember). I bring it up only
> because as more and more interesting things (such as sockets) are
> added to boost, it becomes more important that they are thread-safe
> (I realize that's a loaded term, but I just mean that their thread
> safety issues are documented). At least for me (and I have to
> imagine a lot of others here), the utility of something like a
> socket will be very limited if it can't be used in a multithreaded
> program...

The Boost Thread Library (final name?) is very much a work in 
progress.  Things slowed down in the last few months because of the 
holidays and other pressing matters, but I'll be stoking the fires 
again real soon.

You comments about needing thread safety brings up a topic for 
discussion, however.  Early in the development we talked about there 
being a need for synchronization primitives even before we include 
portable thread support.  We're basically close enough now to focus 
on porting such primitives to various platforms and submitting an 
initial version of the library to Boost.  My focus had moved on to 
TLS and thread support rather than on finishing the synchronization 
primitives, but maybe we should consider doing just this.  Any 
thoughts from others on this?

Bill Kempf