Re: [boost] [threading] rewrite

From: Anthony Williams (anthony_w.geo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-03 05:06:11

Roland Schwarz <roland.schwarz_at_[hidden]> writes:

> Anthony Williams wrote:
> I also hope that I can count on you helping fixing bugs for the the 
> upcoming 1-34 release.

Of course. Let me know which ones to look at.

>> If no-one else takes on POSIX, I could do that too, (though I thought we
>> did have a volunteer), but I know nothing about MacOS, and don't have
>> access to a Mac.
>
> Since I am about to switch over to linux based systems, I would be 
> interested to take over this part, while waiting for Matt Hurd who AFAIR 
> intended to focus on this.

Fine, it's all yours.

> Since pthreads is available on a lot of platforms (win32 too) I intend 
> to extend the support for pthreads implementation, i.e the library user 
> should be able to choose between pthreads versus native implementation 
> where available. Also this approach will make it possible to get 
> boost_threads ported to a new platform fast, while still give the option 
> to do a native implementation later. Having pthreads implementation 
> available on most platforms also will give a reference implementation to 
> check for correctness and the like.

Agreed.

> I contacted Mac Murret (the contributor of the mac implementation) 
> offlist. He told me that it is not meaningful to support MP on mac 
> anymore since while still available it is an emulation layer on top of 
> pthreads which in turn is on top of the native interface. Supporting 
> pthreads he thinks is sufficient while possibly optimize for Mac Threads 
> might be meaningful in some specific areas. 

That's good to know; it does simplify implementation. Are the older MacOS
releases not worth supporting any more, then?

> He will be available if we 
> need someone to do a test compile once we have pthreads in place.

And it's good to have someone who can test things.

Anthony
-- 
Anthony Williams
Software Developer
Just Software Solutions Ltd
http://www.justsoftwaresolutions.co.uk