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Happy New Year 2011

Thursday, 13 January 2011

It's nearly two weeks into 2011 already (though it only seems a couple of days — where did it all go?), but I'd like to wish you all a (slightly belated) Happy New Year!

2010 was a good year for me. Sales of Just::Thread, my implementation of the C++0x thread library have been growing steadily — there's a new version due out any day now, with support for the changes accepted at the November 2010 C++ Standards meeting, and Just::Thread Pro is in the works. I also presented at the ACCU conference for the third year running.

It's also been a big year for the C++ community:

• the C++0x FCD was published, and we're now in the final phase of getting it ready for publication this year;
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 was released, providing Windows developers access to several C++0x features such as rvalue references and lambda functions;
• g++ 4.5 was released, providing further C++0x support (including lambdas, again) to C++ developers across the wide variety of platforms supported by gcc;
• Plus, of course, new versions of other compilers and libraries too (including four(!) releases of the Boost C++ libraries).

Popular articles

As is my custom, here's a list of the 10 most popular articles and blog entries from the Just Software Solutions website in 2010. The key difference from last year's list is the rise of the C++0x thread library stuff.

1. November 2010 C++ Standards Committee Mailing
   My summary of the November 2010 C++ committee mailing.
2. Implementing a Thread-Safe Queue using Condition Variables
   A description of the issues around writing a thread-safe queue, with code.
3. just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.0 Released
   This is the release announcement for our just::thread C++0x thread library.
4. Importing an Existing Windows XP Installation into VirtualBox
   This article describes how I recovered the hard disk of a dead laptop to run as a VM under VirtualBox.
5. Deadlock Detection with just::thread
   This article describes how to use the special deadlock-detection mode of our just::thread C++0x thread library to locate the cause of deadlocks.
6. Implementing drop-down menus in pure CSS (no JavaScript)
   How to implement drop-down menus in CSS in a cross-browser fashion (with a teensy bit of JavaScript for IE).
7. Multithreading in C++0x part 1: Starting Threads
   This is the first part of my series on the new C++0x thread library. Links to the remaining parts are at the end of the article.
8. Thread Interruption in the Boost Thread Library
   A description of the thread interruption feature of the Boost Thread library.
9. Introduction to C++ Templates
   My basic introduction to C++ templates.
10. October 2010 C++ Standards Committee Mailing
    My summary of the October 2010 C++ committee mailing, and the big issues for discussion at the November 2010 meeting — implicit move functions and noexcept for destructors.

What's coming in 2011?

Will 2011 be even better than 2010? I hope so. As I already mentioned, there's a new version of just::thread coming soon, along with Just::Thread Pro. Also, both the C++0x standard and my book should finally be published. I'll also be presenting at ACCU 2011 in April — hope to see you there.

What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Coming Soon: Just::Thread Pro

Friday, 29 October 2010

Multithreaded code doesn't have to be complicated.

That's the idea behind the Just::Thread Pro library. By providing a set of high level facilities in the library, your application code can be simplified — rather than spending your time on the complexities of multithreading and concurrency you can instead focus on what it is your application is trying to achieve.

Building on the Just::Thread C++0x thread library, Just::Thread Pro will provide facilities to:

• Encapsulate communication between threads to avoid deadlocks and race conditions
• Easily scale your application to make use of multi-core processors
• Parallelize existing single-threaded code without a major rewrite

Just::Thread Pro will be available for all platforms supported by Just::Thread.

Head over to the Just::Thread Pro website and sign up to receive further news about the library and notification when it is released.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: concurrency, cplusplus, multithreading
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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.4.2 Released

Friday, 15 October 2010

I am pleased to announce that version 1.4.2 of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

The big change with this release is the new support for gcc 4.5 on Ubuntu Linux. If you're running Ubuntu Lucid then you can get the .DEB files for gcc 4.5 from yesterday's blog post. For Ubuntu Maverick, gcc 4.5 is in the repositories.

Other changes:

• Overflow in ratio arithmetic will now cause a compilation failure
• Ratio arithmetic operations derive from the resulting std::ratio instantiation as well as providing the ::type member to better emulate the C++0x working draft
• On Windows, just::thread can now be used in MFC DLLs

Purchase your copy and get started with the C++0x thread library now.

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.4.2 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x
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gcc 4.5 Packages for Ubuntu Lucid

Thursday, 14 October 2010

Ubuntu Maverick was released earlier this week. Amongst other things, gcc 4.5 is available in the repositories, whereas for previous versions you had to build it yourself from source.

In order to save you the pain of compiling gcc 4.5 for yourself (which can take a while, and overheated my laptop when I tried), I've built it for Ubuntu Lucid, and uploaded the .deb files to my website. The .debs are built from the Maverick source packages for gcc 4.5.1, binutils 2.20.51, cloog-ppl and mpclib, and I've built them for both i386 and amd64 architectures.

• binutils_2.20.51.20100908-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• binutils_2.20.51.20100908-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
• cpp-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• cpp-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• g++-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• g++-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• gcc-4.5-base_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• gcc-4.5-base_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• gcc-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• gcc-4.5_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libcloog-ppl0_0.15.9-2_amd64.deb
• libcloog-ppl0_0.15.9-2_i386.deb
• libgcc1_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• libgcc1_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libgomp1_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• libgomp1_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libmpc2_0.8.2-1build1_amd64.deb
• libmpc2_0.8.2-1build1_i386.deb
• libstdc++6-4.5-dev_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• libstdc++6-4.5-dev_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libstdc++6_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_amd64.deb
• libstdc++6_4.5.1-7ubuntu2_i386.deb

Enjoy!

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: gcc, lucid, ubuntu
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Concept Checking Without C++0x Concepts

Wednesday, 06 October 2010

My latest article, Concept Checking Without Concepts in C++ was published on the Dr Dobb's website a couple of weeks ago.

One of the important features of the now-defunct C++0x Concepts proposal was the ability to overload functions based on whether or not their arguments met certain concepts. This article describes a way to allow that for concepts based on the presence of particular member functions.

The basic idea is that you can write traits classes that detect particular sets of member functions. Function overloads that require these concepts can then be enabled or disabled by using std::enable_if with these traits.

The example I use is checking for a Lockable type which has lock(), unlock() and try_lock() member functions, but the same technique could easily be used for other concepts that required other member functions.

Read the article for the full details.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: concepts, cplusplus
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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.4.1 Released

Monday, 09 August 2010

I am pleased to announce that version 1.4.1 of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

Thisis an improvement over V1.4.0 in a number of areas:

• Both /Zc:wchar_t and /Zc:wchar_t- are supported with MSVC
• std::chrono::high_resolution_clock typedef added
• Added support for shared libraries on Linux
• Faster mutex locking and unlocking on contended mutexes on Linux
• Faster blocking/unblocking for condition variables on Linux
• Support for tracking clock changes when waiting on a std::chrono::system_clock time with std::condition_variable on Linux with kernels >= 2.6.31
• Support for floating-point durations
• Faster time retrieval with std::chrono::monotonic_clock::now() on Windows
• Added support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

Purchase your copy and get started with the C++0x thread library now.

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.4.1 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x
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Enforcing Correct Mutex Usage with Synchronized Values

Friday, 28 May 2010

My latest article, Enforcing Correct Mutex Usage with Synchronized Values has been published on the Dr Dobb's website.

This article expands on the SynchronizedValue<T> template I mentioned in my presentation on Concurrency in the Real World at ACCU 2010, and deals with the problem of ensuring that the mutex associated with some data is locked whenever the data is accessed.

The basic idea is that you use SynchronizedValue<T> wherever you have an object of type T that you wish to be protected with its own mutex. The SynchronizedValue<T> then behaves like a pointer-to-T for simple uses.

Read the article for the full details.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: mutex, cplusplus
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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.4 (FCD Edition) Released

Thursday, 06 May 2010

I am pleased to announce that version 1.4 (the FCD edition) of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

With the release of the "FCD edition", just::thread provides the first complete implementation of the multithreading facilities from the Final Committee Draft (FCD) of the C++0x standard.

Changes include:

• New promise::set_value_at_thread_exit, promise::set_exception_at_thread_exit, and packaged_task::make_ready_at_thread_exit member functions to defer unblocking waiting threads until the notifying thread exits
• New notify_all_at_thread_exit function for notifying condition variables when the notifying thread exits
• The wait_for and wait_until member functions of future, shared_future and atomic_future return a future_status enum rather than bool to indicate whether the future is ready, the wait timed out, or the future contains a deferred async function
• The destructor of the last future associated with an async function waits for that function to complete.
• New ATOMIC_VAR_INIT macro for initializing atomic objects
• The callable object for a packaged_task is destroyed with the packaged_task rather than being kept alive until the future is destroyed

Purchase your copy and get started with the C++0x thread library NOW.

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.4.0 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x
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"Concurrency in the Real World" slides now available

Monday, 19 April 2010

The slides for my presentation on "Concurrency in the Real World" at the ACCU 2010 conference last week are now available.

The room was full, and quite warm due to the air conditioning having been turned off, but everything went to plan, and there were some insightful questions from the audience. I've thoroughly enjoyed presenting at ACCU in previous years, and this was no exception.

I covered the main pitfalls people encounter when writing multithreaded code, along with some techniques that I've found help deal with those problems, including some example code from projects I've worked on. As you might expect, all my examples were in C++, though the basic ideas are cross-language. I finished up by talking about what we might hope to get out of multithreaded code, such as performance, additional features and responsiveness.

There's a discount on my just::thread library until Friday 23rd April 2010, so if you're doing concurrency in C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio on Windows or g++ on linux get yourself a copy whilst it's on offer and start taking advantage of the new C++0x thread library.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: concurrency, multithreading, c++, ACCU
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Sign up for a 50% discount just::thread FCD edition

Wednesday, 07 April 2010

I'm in the process of updating our C++0x thread library for VS2008, VC10, g++ 4.3 and g++ 4.4 to incorporate the changes to the C++0x thread library voted into the C++0x FCD. I'll be writing a blog post with more details in due course, but the big changes are:

• Functions for postponing notification of threads waiting on a std::future until the thread that set the value on the std::promise or ran the std::packaged_task has exited.
• A similar facility for notifying a std::condition_variable at thread exit.
• Defined behaviour for the wait_for() and wait_until() member functions of std::future when used with std::async and a launch policy of std::launch::sync.
• Changes to the initialization of atomic variables.

Existing customers will get the new version as a free upgrade, but the rest of you can get a 50% discount if you subscribe to my blog by email. Just fill in your name and email address in the form below and be sure to click the confirmation link. You'll then receive future blog posts by email, along with an announcement and exclusive discount for the FCD edition of just::thread when it's released.

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Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: concurrency, threading, C++0x, just::thread
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