Re: [boost] [rfc] getting the dataflow library ready for submission

From: Phil Endecott (spam_from_boost_dev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-11-09 17:39:28

Stjepan Rajko wrote:
> I am getting close to having the Dataflow library ready to be
> submitted for review, and would like to respark some interest.

Hi Stjepan,

A couple of months ago I saw a talk by Bdale Garbee about the GNU Radio 
project (http://gnuradio.org/).  They're doing various kinds of 
impressive-looking radio-related DSP on PCs.  IIRC they currently have 
something where they write Python code to glue together C++ building 
blocks using some sort of data flow notation, but their next version 
will not require the Python layer.  It may well have some useful 
material for you, or they may be interested in your code.

Personally, I'm interested in something that is superficially similar 
to this but with some make-like dependency tracking included.  I 
imagine changes to one data structure "flowing" through to other 
structures that depend on it.  This needs to be between threads, and so 
not changing the dependent data while it is in use is one of the 
challenges.  (I only have the vaguest idea what I really mean by that.)

With computers getting more and more parallel all the time, we should 
all be looking for ways to make our code more concurrent!  Providing a 
reasonably "natural" way to "plumb together" functions could be one way 
to do that.

Regards,

Phil.