[boost] Re: [Threads] Reactive Objects

From: Matthew Vogt (mvogt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-03-02 23:16:48

scott <scottw <at> qbik.com> writes:

> Got that. I have to leave it up to you. We seem to have worked through one
> major area of conceptualizing; schedulers and servants. These take a
> big whip to the business of taming threads. We are now at the point
> of deciding how these beasts will communicate amongst themselves. Is it
> to be "method-based" or "message-based"? I can see that your baby will
> sing but so does messaging.

Method-based can be layered above messages, if the messages support the
concept of having their dispatch addresses potentially pre-bound.

The scheduler of the message-driven system can do something like:

message m = dequeue();
if (m.dispatch_bound())
{
  m.dispatch();
}
else
{
  servant->dispatch(m);
}

where the unbound case calls a function that switches based on the message 
code or content.

Then all the proxies need to do to yield a method-based interface is bind
the address into the message before queueing.

> If we can agree on something here then we would have a complete target for
> something built on boost.thread, i.e. there are no other "areas"?

I think messaging between thread contexts is a useful target.

> Cheers,
> Scott

Matt