[comp.os.mach] Posix Threads

francis@cs.ua.oz.au (Francis Vaughan) (05/29/91)

At the Usenix Mach Workshop in Burlington last year we had
a most enjoyable pannel session about threads. In particular
there was representation from the Posix Threads group.

It has been a while now, and I sudedenly find myself interested
in how things have progressed here. Can anyone fill me in, or
better point me at some form of current position statement on
Posix threads? I am especially interested in the state of play
on the handling of exceptions.


					Francis Vaughan

sp@mirabeau.osf.fr (Simon Patience) (05/29/91)

In article <3437@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au>, francis@cs.ua.oz.au
(Francis Vaughan) writes:
> At the Usenix Mach Workshop in Burlington last year we had
> a most enjoyable pannel session about threads. In particular
> there was representation from the Posix Threads group.
> 
> It has been a while now, and I sudedenly find myself interested
> in how things have progressed here. Can anyone fill me in, or
> better point me at some form of current position statement on
> Posix threads? I am especially interested in the state of play
> on the handling of exceptions.

Actually there were a number of people from the threads group on that
panel, myself included. We were mainly chosen because we had different
views of what a thread looked like and had argued it out thousands of
times previously in the working group.

As for the status, Draft 5 is out and is currently undergoing ballot. I
don't know when the next recirculation is, but it is certain that we
will need one before the draft will be standardized.

By exceptions do you mean cancellation? In draft 5 this moved to be a
signal with special semantics and limited use with other signal calls.
There have been a lot of objections to that change, including the Common
Reference Ballot, so I don't know whether that change will stick.

Good enough?

Simon.

  Simon Patience
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