[boost] Re: Multi threading etc (again)

From: Kevlin Henney (Kevlin.Henney_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-07-27 11:07:05

Greg Colvin wrote:
   To change the topic slightly -- for shared_ptr I don't think we
   need a full threading library, we just need a way, on any given
   computer, to atomically decrement-and-test the counter variable.
   Given that, it doesn't matter how threads are done.

Agreed. The last thing that shared_ptr needs is a heavy overhead locking
mechanism; inc and dec&test need to be lock-free and atomic. Therefore,
should the problem be removed one level by writing shared_ptr in terms of
such a counter, and isolating the platform specific w/i that counter class
alone?

Kevlin