Re: [boost] [RFC] sticky_exception

From: Corrado Zoccolo (czoccolo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-09-16 06:25:46

My personal opinion on this is that the thread_interrupted exception
should be considered a normal exception.

My guideline to use exception vs. assertions is:
* if an invariant is broken, use assert
* if inputs are out of range, use exceptions, or better exit codes
* if the postcondition cannot be guaranteed due to a failure in the
interaction with external world, use exceptions

I think thread cancellation is an (asynchronous) interaction with
external world, so it should be handled exactly in the same way as a
timeout connecting to a TCP address, or an error when reading from
disk.

Moreover, I suggest that, instead of speaking of cancellation, in
which the outcome is decided from outside, we should speak of
interruption (like in Java, where thread handling was designed
together with the language).
Interruption is signalling a thread (that may be blocked into a long
operation) to become responsive again to some predefined events (one
of those, but not the only one, is termination).

Corrado

-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
dott. Corrado Zoccolo                          mailto:zoccolo_at_[hidden]
PhD - Department of Computer Science - University of Pisa, Italy
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