[c++-pthreads] concrete library-code example

[Matt Austern]

On Jan 7, 2004, at 8:44 AM, Dave Butenhof wrote:

> Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
>
>> Dave Butenhof <David.Butenhof at hp.com> writes:
>>
>> | mean it. Perhaps the C++ committee people already know exactly the
>> | full range of constraints and requirements on this effort, but I, 
>> and
>> | presumably others involved in this wider discussion group, cannot. 
>> If
>> | those constraints and requirements aren't to be explicitly and fully
>> | shared with us, then the discussion never should have been opened up
>> | in the first place... and I might as well just go away.
>>
>> Well, I would not say that the C++ committee people already know
>> exactly the full range of constraints and requirements.  I believe
>> some people have firm opinions on what they would like to have, but
>> those vary from individuals to individual -- you most certainly saw
>> disagreements between C++ committee members on this list.
>>
> Well, perhaps there might have been just a tiny element of 
> disingenuity in my paragraph; though I'd prefer to call it "tact" in 
> this instance, that distinction may not really be justifiable. I 
> really do think that IF there are any predefined requirements and 
> constraints, either they need to be explicitly layed out for us 
> "outsiders", or they need to be set aside entirely for these 
> discussions, because we can't be expected to know them.

To some extent I don't think anyone knows them.  This is a group that 
consists of people from a lot of different places; some of the people 
on this list, by no means all, attend C++ committee meetings.

The origin of this discussion was on the GCC mailing list, when people 
were trying to figure out how gcc, glibc, and libstdc++ should handle 
the intersection of C++ and pthreads.  People in that discussion 
realized that this was a discussion that extended beyond the GNU 
community and that a solution adopted by gcc/linux wouldn't be nearly 
as interesting as a solution that was generally recognized as right.

In the end, "generally recognized as right" probably means getting 
approval from the C++ committee and/or The Austin Group.  But that's 
for another day.

My goals are (I believe) very similar to yours: figure out what the 
POSIX C binding should mean for C++.  This might mean something as 
ambitious as coming up with a separate C++ binding, or it might mean 
making some minor tweaks and clarifications in the existing C binding 
and/or the existing C++ language specification.  In principle I'm 
agnostic between the two.  In practice I suspect we don't have the 
resources or the vendor buy-in to do anything extremely ambitious.

			--Matt