Re: [boost] Future of Boost.Thread, date-time, and C++0x

From: Aaron W. LaFramboise (aaronrabiddog51_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-10 19:23:28

Howard Hinnant wrote:

> The only suggestion I have here, from a standards point of view, is  
> for the standard to anticipate and support user-defined mutexes/locks  
> in the easiest way possible so that libraries such as boost can easily  
> build upon the standard foundation.  This philosophical foundation is  
> in the standard-proposed document.  Whether or not we've actually  
> achieved this goal is a separate question. ;-)

Is there a summary somewhere regarding the extensibility features of the 
threading library?

In particular, is this threading library you're standardizing going to 
create threading objects that hide their thread handle such that they 
can't be extended to work with custom multiplexers?

[I am horribly concerned by the ever-increasing trend to write 
concrete-style components that support only least-common-denominator 
system features, with no possibly way to extend them due to inability to 
'get at' some inner handle.  Boost filesystem, Boost thread, iostream 
all do this, making it impossible for even a completely normal vanilla 
single-threaded GUI program to be able to safely use them (due to the 
fact they might block, and there's no way to multiplex them with the 
GUI, despite the fact the OS would be able to do this).

The net effect is that these style of components are mostly useless to 
most modern single-threaded applications writers.  I am hoping this 
threading library you are working on is something I will actually be 
able to use, and not just something made for terminal-based POSIX systems.]