On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 22:51:18 +0000 (UTC), Matthew Vogt wrote
Jeff Garland <jeff <at> crystalclearsoftware.com> writes:
ACE has direct support for the paradigm. It's been a couple years since I looked at it, but as I recall using a bunch of template magic object methods are morphed into stubs that queue messages for the object thus disconnecting the requesting thread from the execution of the method.
This is an interesting idea, using the boundaries of objects as the interaction points between threads. I have no experience with this sort of threading, but your comments led me to sketch
Interestingly, neither do I -- other than being aware of the ideas and having looked at how it might be applied. I never found an application where this made more sense than thread pools or some other more pedestrian threading model...
out a wrapper which could be used to give 'active object' behaviour to existing classes, which might provide a simple pattern for concurrency in some apps...
Anyway:
...lengthy code example snipped...
It may be of some utility, especially if it can be reworked to allow for interface inheritance from the wrapped object. If nothing else, it shows how lots of boost libraries can be combined in a short space of lines...
All I can say is wow and very impressive! I believe you have managed to leverage the power of several boost libraries very nicely. Anyway, I think the example is a bit contrived in that having the main thread block for a response, but still very cool. One of the interesting points of your example is that a cross-thread queue is needed. Several people have mentioned this as a priority for the thread library and I agree. Every multi-threaded app I've seen needs a cross-thread queue...
I'm sure it can stand a lot of refinement, but I can't be bothered working on it any more!
Too bad, seems like you could make a nice contribution :-( Jeff