Re: [boost] Report from Berlin C++ Standards Committee meeting

From: Ion Gaztañaga (igaztanaga_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-10 11:50:22

> * Boost Threads has been reaffirmed as the LWG's choice as the basis for a 
> TR2 threading library. Pete Becker's 
> www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2005/n1907.html is the most 
> recent version of the proposal. It will be refined and modified as work 
> progresses. Howard Hinnant plans to propose unifying the lock classes into 
> scoped_lock/shared_lock and possibly one other class. Pete will propose a 
> function to access the underlying operating system handles to allow access 
> to non-portable functionality. I've committed to review error handling to 
> ensure handling of operating system errors is consistent between all TR2 
> libraries.

Along with lock unification I would also propose mutex unification: 
mutex, try_mutex, timed_mutex, recursive_mutex, recursive_try_mutex, 
recursive_timed_mutex can be simplified into mutex and recursive_mutex 
including try and timed functions. Current UNIX and Windows platforms 
offer efficient implementations of all functions with native mutexes so 
I see no need to have so many mutexes. Maybe this is an issue to comment 
in comp.std.c++ but since it's based on boost, I think we should think 
about it.

I think all desired modifications can be proposed in the current Boost 
Thread rework effort and aren't too intrusive. For thread launching I 
prefer Kevlin Henney's proposal approach. Has the committee rejected 
this approach?

Regards,

Ion