Re: [boost] [Fibers] Performance

Subject: Re: [boost] [Fibers] Performance
From: Gavin Lambert (gavinl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-01-27 17:16:16

On 25/01/2014 01:13, Quoth Bjorn Reese:
>> Or each "function" is just a custom async operation.  You don't request
>> a function and then try to interrogate it, you just execute operations.
>
> Can you elaborate? If I have the following event listener, how would
> it look and be used with your suggestion?
>
>    class gui_event {
>    public:
>      virtual void on_key(int key);
>      virtual void on_help(int x, int y);
>    };

You flip it around.  Instead of having an event listener object that is 
registered on some event provider source, where the provider source 
invokes the methods explicitly when an event arrives, you have anything 
that is interested in events invoke an async request on the source 
object.  So it'd be something more like this:

class gui_source {
public:
    // actually using templates to make the callback more generic
    void async_key(void (*callback)(error_code ec, int key));
    void async_help(void (*callback)(error_code ec, int x, int y));
};

The code on the receiving side just handles a callback instead of 
receiving an explicit call, but otherwise it's basically the same.

You still have to externally define your threading model (eg. GUI events 
typically assume they're always called back on the same thread), and the 
policy on whether events are forwarded to all listeners or only 
first-come-first-served, if callbacks are supposed to be ordered in some 
way, and if callbacks are "persistent" (request once, called many times) 
or "single-shot" (one callback per request, as in ASIO), and if the 
latter, what happens if an event arrives when a particular listener is 
in between listen calls.

Because of the extra complexity, it's definitely *easier* to use the 
direct-notifier pattern, which is why most UI frameworks do that.  But 
it's *possible* to use these successfully even with single-shot 
callbacks -- just look at AJAX long-polling for a real-world example.