In-Reply-To: <loom.20050308T013051-569@post.gmane.org> belvis@pacbell.net (Bob Bell) wrote (abridged):

Another possibility is to provide another level of indirection. For example, boost::thread can have an accessor which returns a boost::platform_thread, which has the OS thread ID, plus member functions which mimic OS operations not reflected in the portable (boost::thread) API. The advantage of this approach is that boost::platform_thread member functions may be able to preserve invariants that otherwise might be broken if the user was allowed to manipulate the underlying OS thread ID itself, and if the coverage of the boost::platform_thread member functions is large enough, it might not even be necessary to expose the OS thread ID at all.

I don't think the coverage could never be large enough. We should always allow for 3rd parties which are not boost-aware, and which need to be passed low-level OS handles. -- Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK