Re: [boost] Review Request: future library (Gaskill version)

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-11 12:30:48

Frank Mori Hess:

> Would support for releasing a future's reference count be acceptable in 
> this
> scheme?  That is, something like
>
> future<void> fire();
> //...
> {
> future<void> forget = fire();
> forget.release(); // promise is not cancelled when forget destructs
> }

Good point about fire and forget tasks. I'm not sure I have a satisfactory 
answer yet. There is no way to distinguish a result-only task from a 
perform-side-effects task automatically, so the user must have some way to 
say which is which.

On the other hand, a newly created promise doesn't have a cancel handler by 
default, so whoever installs the cancel handler (the executor) can easily 
take an argument that disables said installation.