Re: [boost] [shmem-interprocess] Shmem 0.93 and update on Interprocess

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-10 22:03:39

Ion Gaztañaga wrote:
>> Quick question -- as I recall interprocess was accepted a few months 
>> back -- is there something that's preventing it from going into cvs? 
>> Once it is there we get the benefit of regression tests and other 
>> developers can easily see it.
> 
> The problem is that it's very unstable, because when Shmem was accepted, 
>   a lot of changes were requested and Shmem's POSIX/Win32 portability 
> problems require reworking a lot of things. I'm trying to add also some
> new features. 

I think you should separate the two things.  Get the required changes in 
and make the initial version of the library available, then work on new 
features.

>Interprocess has also to offer process-shared mutexes, 
> condition variables, etc... I would like to offer the same interface as 
> the proposed C++ standard interface (currently Boost.Threads, but some 
> are proposing simplifying it, reworking scoped locks, etc...).
> 
> Currently there is no documentation so it wouldn't be very usable (well, 
> there are some tests to know how it works). I could upload it to CVS if 
> any developer wants to start testing it and get suggestions. What do you 
> think, it should go first to boost-sandbox, or directly to the boost 
> main repository?

As soon as you upload and register into the regression system you will 
get to see how it works on a variety of platforms (well, at least after 
1.34 ships you will).  Folks interested in a particular 
compiler/platform may start looking at it an helping you port.  And 
beyond the formal regression tests, others of us regularly update, 
rebuild, and run regression tests.  I don't tend to mess with anything 
in the sandbox unless I really, really want to use it for something (in 
fact we really need to clean the old stuff out).  Most new Boost 
developers don't realize that the process of getting in CVS and the 
regression test system will take a couple months...

I just worry about you falling into the circular_buffer trap.  A 
perfectly usable and accepted library that 2 years later because of some 
issues the author doesn't now have time to address. It's a loss to the 
community and a shame.  I don't have an immediate need for 
inter-process, but there's alot of concurrency/multi-process code in 
progress in Boost for SOC and otherwise. Interprocess is a piece of that 
puzzle -- so I'd like to see more eyes and testing on it sooner rather 
than later.  Getting it into CVS accomplishes the first step.

Jeff