Re: [Boost-users] [thread] comparison with Intel Threading BuildingBlocks

From: Anthony Williams (anthony_w.geo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-25 12:18:15

"Ovanes Markarian" <om_boost_at_[hidden]> writes:

> On Wed, July 25, 2007 17:06, Andrew Holden wrote:
>> Ovanes Markarian wrote:
>>> Thanks for you link, a very interesting one ;) I ment this
>>> one in my previous post:
>>> http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2276.html
>>
>> Another interesting technology.  I'll need to examine it more closely.
>> It looks similar to TBB.  Intel's implementation of TBB uses tasks and
>> thread pools.  Instead of futures, it uses canned parallel algorithms
>> that WILL complete before returning, thus freeing the user from worrying
>> that values might not be ready.
>>
>> It looks like the futures run at a somewhat lower level than TBB, which
>> is certainly not a bad thing.  I can already see the beginnings of some
>> ideas where it might do things that TBB can't, like any situation where
>> you wish to launch a separate thread (or task) and forget about it.  I'm
>> also intrigued by the option of waiting an a specific return value from
>> the thread instead of joining the entire thread, like in boost.thread.
>>
>> I find myself wordering if this would be a worthy addition to
>> boost.thread.  It looks like you could use a boost.thread condition
>> object in the implementation of a future.
>
> AFAIK Peter Dimov did some technology evaluation and implementation for
> futures. I also saw that Howard Hinnant was working on futures. May be there
> are already some implemenations which prove the concept.

I have an incomplete prototype of the futures and thread pools from N2276. I
intend to add it to boost.thread once the move to subversion is complete, and
adjust it in line with whatever the C++ committee approve.

Anthony
-- 
Anthony Williams
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