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Subject: Re: [boost] Subject: Formal Review of Proposed Boost.Process library starts tomorrow
From: Jeremy Maitin-Shepard (jeremy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-02-11 22:25:22


On 02/11/2011 04:34 PM, Boris Schaeling wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:07:34 +0100, Artyom <artyomtnk_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
>> [...]asio is very well designed asynchrous event loop that IMHO
>> should be used for any asynchronous operations as it allows
>> to do in "async" way almost any task.
>
> This was exactly what I always thought, too. Now I believe that I made
> the classic mistake of seeing everywhere nails because of the Boost.Asio
> hammer. As much as I like Boost.Asio I don't think anymore that we
> should try to integrate everything in Boost.Asio just because we managed
> to add the word "asynchronous" to the description of a feature. There
> are certain requirements, and if they are not met I think Boost.Asio is
> the wrong answer.
>
> Boost.Asio is based on I/O service objects which provide services to I/O
> objects. If we create a singleton outside of I/O service objects what's
> their purpose? We don't need them anymore. We could use the singleton
> directly. That's what Dmitry Goncharov had proposed with his
> signal_handler.
>
> Or let's imagine Boost.Asio wouldn't exist and we would think about a
> signal handler. Everyone would probably agree that we need a singleton.
> But would anyone argue that we also need an I/O service object and an
> I/O object?
>
> Given the easy to use Boost.Asio API some developers would still prefer
> to use it. And it could all still be built on top of such a singleton.
> I, for one, would always prefer direct access to the singleton though -
> especially if it's that easy to use as Dmitry's and Boost.Asio can't
> provide me anything extra.

If a dedicated thread is used to handle SIGCHLD, then that thread could
also invoke the asynchronous notifications, and Boost Asio wouldn't add
anything. However, users may instead wish to not use a dedicated
thread, or to receive notifications in a different thread, in which case
Boost Asio would seem to have some use.


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