Re: [Boost-users] [ASIO] directory monitor ASIO extension

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [ASIO] directory monitor ASIO extension
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-08-06 05:57:14

On 6 Aug 2014 at 8:58, Szymon Gatner wrote:

> > Ah yes. The directory monitor isn't ready for production use. By
> > production use I mean:
> >
> > * Can cope with 1m entry directories easily as the rest of AFIO can.
> >
> > * Can handle 50,000 entries changing every second in a 1m entry
> > directory without losing change deltas and without racing on
> > individual stats on a 2Ghz single core, with approximate linear
> > scaling with additional cores i.e. four cores can monitor four 1m
> > entry directories seeing 5% change.
> 
> I should be OK :) What are the advantages over Boris' version tho?

Boris's won't deadlock as frequently as the AFIO one :). If code 
isn't in the master or stable branch in AFIO, I wouldn't use it.

You could use AFIO's directory enumeration which is in stable 
combined with Boris' directory monitoring. It depends on if you need 
unracy metadata support on Windows as Filesystem is currently racy 
there.

> > Sorry, I forgot (it's nearly 2am) to mention that AFIO itself is
> > production ready and has been in the review queue since October 2013.
> >
> Why isn't it under review yet?

There is a large backlog, some libraries have been waiting in the 
queue for years. Part of this is due to sickness in the Boost culture 
and the ongoing decline of Boost for two years now, part is simply 
because no one wants nor needs a portable asynchronous file i/o 
library and therefore no one is interested in volunteering as review 
manager.

Besides, it wouldn't pass a review right now because its API would be 
considered unusable as it was designed for maximum speed, and 
therefore isn't "Boosty enough" - people would ask "where are the 
iterators?" etc etc. This is also because the API is designed as a 
stable binary ABI to be assembled by the forthcoming monadic 
continuations framework being led out by Vicente. Still, if you need 
maximum portable file i/o performance now, it works very well and 
will continue to work into the future.

Niall

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