feeds.theron-library.com http://www.theron-library.com en-gb http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:31:46 -0500 Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:31:46 -0500 720 Theron news feed http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=57 http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=57 Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:31:46 -0500 Version 3.05.01 releasedI just released a patch for version 3.05. The patch fixes a threading issue that could show up, I believe, when messages were sent to actors just as they were created or destroyed. Apologies to anyone affected. ]]> http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=56 http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=56 Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:27:39 -0500 Version 3.05.00 releasedOut today, version 3.05.00. This release includes an improvement to Theron's internal memory block caching, and adds separate build configurations for the Just Thread threading library. The memory access pattern improvements give a significant speedup in benchmarks on some platforms. ]]> http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=55 http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=55 Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:38:42 -0500 Version 3.04.01 releasedRelease 3.04.01 is a patch release with a few minor bugfixes, mainly to gcc builds. I've added the -pthread option to the link flags in Boost builds, since it seems to be required in my testing on Linux. I've also fixed a bunch of cast warnings that showed up with gcc. Finally, the PingPong benchmark wasn't being built in the makefile, so I added it. ]]> http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=54 http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=54 Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:52:15 -0500 Build changes and the Getting Started pageAs you may have seen, the 3.04 release of Theron introduces support for the new standard thread component of C++11. As part of this, there have been some changes to the builds in both Linux and Windows. The makefile now supports a threads=std option, and the Visual Studio solution now has multiple configurations that allow the thread library to be selected from the Configuration drop-down listbox within the IDE. The available configurations are: Boost Debug Boost Release Windows Debug Windows Release Std Debug Std Release On both platforms there are complications arising from the dependencies on external libraries. With Boost.Thread there is the dependency on Boost, which can live anywhere but typically is found in different ways on Linux and Windows. With std::thread there is the limited support for C++11 features in even recent compilers. And with Windows threads one of course needs to be using Windows! When using std::thread in GCC builds you need to be using a recent version of GCC with support for the latest C++ features. When using Visual Studio your options are more limited since AFAIK only the beta of Visual Studio 2011 has support for the standard thread library. Since I'm using Visual Studio 2010 at present I'm testing std::thread support with Just Thread, which is a third-party implementation. For that reason the Std Debug and Std Release configurations in the Visual Studio solution are currrently set up to expect Just Thread. All of this will simplify once std::thread becomes more widely supported, whereupon I may be able to remove support for Boost and Windows threads completely. For now, take a look at the Getting Started page on the website as you begin to use the 3.04 release. I've tried hard to make it a more useful introduction to building with Theron, and it now covers all this stuff in some useful detail. http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=page&p=getting%20started ]]> http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=53 http://www.theron-library.com/index.php?t=story&p=53 Sat, 31 Mar 2012 18:01:49 -0500 Version 3.04.00 releasedVersion 3.04 adds support for std::thread, the new standard threading component of C++. This means that Theron can now use std::thread as its underlying thread library, as well as the existing support for Boost.Thread and Windows threads, which are both still supported. The std::thread support consists of new implementations of the simple four-class API with which Theron wraps its underlying thread library, hiding the differences between different libraries. The new Std implementations were contributed by Chinasaur and are similar to those already provided for Boost.Thread, due to the basis of std::thread on Boost.Thread. Support for std::thread is enabled via a new THERON_USE_STD_THREADS define, which defaults to 0. As well as the code support, support for std::thread extends to the included makefile and Visual Studio solution. The makefile now responds to threads=std as well as the existing threads=boost and threads=windows. The Visual Studio solution now includes separate configurations for building with the three supported thread libraries. The configurations are implemented using the new Property Sheet mechanism introduced in Visual Studio 2010, which allows the settings for a configuration to be specified consistently in one place for multiple projects within a solution. The Getting Started page on the website has been completely rewritten to reflect these build changes, and is now much more comprehensive. Consult it for help with the new build options. It is expected that some tweaking of build settings such as include paths, library paths and library names may be required. Finally, some notes. The location of Boost is assumed to be /usr/include and /usr/lib in makefile builds, and $(BOOST_LOCATION) in Visual Studio builds. Support for std::thread in Visual Studio is currently tested against Just Thread, a commercial third-party implementation of std::thread, and the library and include paths are set up accordingly. Makefile builds, on the other hand, have no dependency on Just Thread and instead assume a recent version of GCC with support for C++11 features such as std::thread. ]]>