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Happy New Year 2012

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Now the post-holidays rush is over, I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

2011 was another good year for me. Sales of Just::Thread, my implementation of the C++11 thread library continue to grow, and my book is finally in typesetting, and nearly ready for printing. We had hoped to get it done by the end of 2011, but last-minute corrections scuppered that. It should now be done relatively quickly.

It's also been a big year for the C++ community: C++11 is now an official ISO standard. This is the culmination of many years of hard work from a huge number of people, so it's good to see it finally done.

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 2011.

1. Implementing a Thread-Safe Queue using Condition Variables
   A description of the issues around writing a thread-safe queue, with code.
2. 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).
3. 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.
4. Multithreading in C++0x part 1: Starting Threads
   This is the first part of my series on the new C++11 thread library. Links to the remaining parts are at the end of the article.
5. Thread-Safe Copy and Move Constructors
   This is a guest post by Michael Spertus on writing copy and move constructors for objects with internal locks.
6. Multithreading in C++0x part 2: Starting Threads with Function Objects and Arguments
   This is the second part of my series on the new C++11 thread library, which covers using callable objects when starting threads, and passing arguments to the thread function.
7. Introduction to C++ Templates
   My basic introduction to C++ templates.
8. Multithreading in C++0x part 8: Futures, Promises and Asynchronous Function Calls
   This is the eighth part of my series on the new C++11 thread library, which covers the "futures" mechanism for passing data between threads.
9. Thread Interruption in the Boost Thread Library
   A description of the thread interruption feature of the Boost Thread library.
10. Deadlock Detection with just::thread
    This article describes how to use the special deadlock-detection mode of our just::thread C++11 thread library to locate the cause of deadlocks.

What's coming in 2012?

Will 2012 be even better than 2011? I hope so. As I already mentioned, my book will finally be printed, which will be a big relief for me.

What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: popular, articles

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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.7.0 Released

Wednesday, 05 October 2011

I am pleased to announce that version 1.7.0 of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

This release adds official support for gcc v4.4 on Centos 6, so Just::Thread is now supported on Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian Linux distributions, as well as Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOSX.

The main change with this release is an enhancement to the std::async implementation. With this enhanced scheduler, the default launch policy (std::launch::async | std::launch::deferred) will defer forcing a decision until either enough resources become available to schedule the task as std::launch::async, or the task is forced to be scheduled as std::launch:deferred by a call to a waiting function (get(), wait(), wait_for() or wait_until()). This will allow more tasks to be scheduled as std::launch::async overall, and allow your application to make better use of the available hardware concurrency.

The implementation of recursive mutexes has been overhauled, leading to much faster lock and unlock times than in previous releases.

This release also provides debugger visualizers for Microsoft Visual Studio, to better show the state of Just::Thread objects such as futures. This will provide greater insight into the state of your program, and allow easier debugging.

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

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.7.0 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x

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Just::Thread now supports GCC on Windows and MacOSX

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

I am pleased to announce that support for the TDM port of gcc 4.5.2 for Windows and the MacPorts builds of gcc 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 have now been added to just::thread.

This release thus greatly improves the portability of the library. You can now write code using just::thread that will work across Windows, Linux and MacOSX. With gcc 4.5 support across all 3 platforms, you can take advantage of the extensive C++0x language support from that compiler too, including lambda functions, rvalue references and variadic templates.

Get your copy now and add portability to your multithreaded programs.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: just::thread, cplusplus, multithreading, gcc, windows, macosx

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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.6 (FDIS Edition) Released

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

I am pleased to announce that version 1.6 (the FDIS edition) of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

If you're interested in C++0x, I'm sure you're aware that the C++0x Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) was voted out at the last C++ Standards Committee meeting. See Michael Wong's blog post and Herb Sutter's blog post if you've been hiding under a rock for the last two months.

Anyway, after the vote at the meeting, the FDIS itself was published in April, and just::thread has now been updated to match the FDIS as close as possible. Where there have been changes to names (such as std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_point becoming std::chrono::system_clock::from_time_t) the old names have been kept, though they are marked "deprecated" using compiler annotations.

Changes include:

• Support for gcc 4.6 on Ubuntu Natty (using the packages from the Ubuntu Toolchain PPA) and Fedora 15.
• Support for thread-local variables with non-trivial constructors and destructors using the JSS_THREAD_LOCAL macro in place of the new thread_local keyword (which is not supported in any current compilers) .
• The std::hash<std::thread::id> specialization has been added.
• The new constexpr and noexcept keywords are used where supported (gcc 4.6 in -std=c++0x mode.)
• The return type of lambda functions is correctly deduced in std::async in both gcc 4.5 and 4.6 and MSVC 2010.
• Various optimizations, including reduction in thread creation code and the overhead of std::async.
• Added std::chrono::system_clock::from_time_t in place of std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_point.

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

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.6.0 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x

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Picking Patterns for Parallel Programs; slides from ACCU 2011

Monday, 18 April 2011

On Saturday, I presented on Picking Patterns for Parallel Programs at ACCU 2011. We were in the Wolvercote room again, which was packed out — people sat on the floor when the chairs ran out.

I thoroughly enjoyed it (even with the minor technical issues), and I've had great feedback from several people who said it was really useful to them — Dmitry even posted on twitter that it was the "best tech talk".

The slides are available for download. The 50% discount on Just::thread mentioned at the end is only valid until 23rd April 2011.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: concurrency, parallelism, threading, accu

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just::thread C++0x Thread Library V1.5.0 Released

Friday, 04 February 2011

I am pleased to announce that version 1.5.0 of just::thread, our C++0x Thread Library has just been released.

This release heralds official support for Debian Lenny and Squeeze, and Fedora 13 and 14; no longer are Linux developers restricted to Ubuntu.

This version has also been updated to match the latest C++ working draft. The resultant changes are:

• There is a new launch policy for std::async: std::launch::deferred. This replaces std::launch::sync, and indicates that the supplied function should be run in the thread that calls get() or wait() on the resultant future rather than asynchronously on its own thread. std::launch::sync is still supported for backwards compatibility.
• There is a new clock type: std::chrono::steady_clock. This replaces std::chrono::monotonic_clock, and is guaranteed to be continuously increasing at a steady rate. This is the clock used for duration-based timeouts. std::chrono::monotonic_clock is till supported for backwards compatibility.
• std::atomic_future has been removed from the standard draft. It is therefore deprecated in just::thread, though still supported for backwards compatibility.
• std::future has a new member function share() for easy conversion to std::shared_future. This works well with the new C++0x use of auto, when you know you want to get a std::shared_future from a std::promise, std::packaged_task or std::async call:

  int some_function();
  std::shared_future<int> f(std::async(some_function)); // old syntax
  auto f2=std::async(some_function).share(); // new syntax
  

This release also provides support for std::atomic<char16_t> and std::atomic<char32_t>, where char16_t and char32_t are provided by the underlying platform.

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

As usual, existing customers are entitled to a free upgrade to V1.5.0 from all earlier versions.

Posted by Anthony Williams
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Tags: multithreading, concurrency, C++0x

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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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Tags: popular, articles

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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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