New omnithread library

[Brian Burton]

Tristan Richardson wrote:
> 
> In response to overwhelming demand (:-)) there is a new version of the
> omnithread library with several improvements.  The new library will be
> included with the next release of omniORB2, scheduled for early next week.
> 

[ description of improvements snipped ]

> 
> Use of exceptions and the new lock classes actually makes the source for
> the implementations of omnithread about 30-40% smaller - always a good
> sign!
> 
> Thanks are due to Brian Burton for suggesting most of these changes.
> 

Thanks for the many improvements!  I am looking forward to using the new
library!  And thanks for mentioning my name.  I guess the squeaky wheel
gets the thanks :-)

I do have a suggestion for an additional feature that you might want to
consider.  I have been developing another thread library with Adriaan
Joubert.  We have implemented a scheme for passing exceptions across
thread boundaries.

When a thread dies with an exception derived from a special base class
(EasyThreadFailure in our library) we store a copy of the exception in
the dead thread.  When another thread calls join() to join with the dead
thread, the exception is rethrown so that the joining thread can deal
with it.  This makes reporting errors in a multithreaded program via
exceptions fairly simple.

If you're interested in the details I'd be happy to provide them.

Thanks again for omniORB!
++Brian

-- 
Brian Burton                          Custom Software Development
Burton Computer Corporation           Java, C++, Orbix, Tuxedo
brian.burton@burton-computer.com      OO Consulting and Mentoring