[boost] Comments on latest thread library

From: Jesse Jones (jesjones_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-04-20 18:09:19

I recently switched to emailer and for some reason its not sending 
mail composed offline. Here's an old message:

1) A consensus seems to be building that basic_lock::operator bool() 
isn't a Good Thing. I suggested a const void* conversion operator 
would be better, but as was mentioned that would allow comparisons 
which seems silly. I also don't think code like:
    lock_type lock(mutex);
    if (lock)
       ...;
is as readable as it could be. I'd vote for an explicit is_locked() method.

2) I don't think the error handling in, eg the Windows semaphore.cpp 
is quite right. CreateSemaphore is now asserting instead of throwing 
which seems wrong. CloseHandle OTOH doesn't check for errors. This is 
in a dtor and CloseHandle probably doesn't do any useful work from 
the clients POV so an assert seems warranted here.

3) Has there been any consideration to cooperative threading? I'm 
mostly a Mac guy and while preemptive threads are available they come 
with too many restrictions to be broadly useful.

   -- Jesse