Peter Dimov wrote:
lock lk( m ); // the original examples
with
scoped_lock lock( m );
you still need to select mutex type in lock template class, thus above would rather look something like: lock<fast_mutex> lk( m ); or: scoped_lock<fast_mutex> lock( m ); Assuming that m is actually "fast_mutex". And you need to know its type whenever you need to lock it or use such lock. Alternatively, if we have common base class ... class lock_base {/* .... */}; ... typedef ... typedef const lock_base& lock; ... and number of heloper functions, we could actually write: lock lk = sole_acquire(m); or: lock lk = acquire<scoped_lock>(m); Please note that no mutex type has been selected (hardcoded) above. The longer I think about such common base, the more I believe that it should be just abstract class with very simple interface (virtual destructor; locked() const; operator safe_bool() const calling locked(); bool same(const lock_base&) const; operator==(const lock_base&, const lock_base&) calling same; friend operator!=(const lock_base&, const lock_base&) calling same;). I will provide some prototype implementation this week. B.