Patterns for Concurrency

The last chapter is dedicated to a set of patterns for use in concurrent programs. Concurrency and C++ have a somewhat complex relationship. On the one hand, C++ is a performance-oriented language, and concurrency is almost always employed to improve performance, so the two are a natural fit. Certainly, C++ was used to develop concurrent programs since the earliest days of the language. On the other hand, for a language so often used for writing concurrent programs, C++ has a surprising dearth of constructs and features that directly address the needs of concurrent programming. These needs are mostly addressed by a wide range of community-developed libraries and, often, application-specific solutions. In this chapter, we will review common problems encountered in the development of concurrent programs and solutions that emerged from years of experience; together, these are the two sides of a design pattern.

The following topics are covered in this chapter...