Using objects that manage threads via std.concurrency

[monarch_dodra]

On Tuesday, 12 February 2013 at 00:09:40 UTC, FG wrote:
> On 2013-02-11 22:37, monarch_dodra wrote:
>> Basically, I can't help but feel the thing has an hopelessly 
>> thread-global
>> "mailbox" approach to the problem. This is all fine and dandy 
>> if there is only a
>> single "canal" of communication between the master and the 
>> child/children.
>
> What thread-global? Every mbox is in thread-local storage.

Yes, but there is only one global mailbox per thread. If I have 
more than one class instance inside a thread trying to 
communicate with other threads, they have to share the box.

>> But what happens if you have 2 objects at once that want to 
>> communicate with
>> their children? They have to share the global mailbox, making 
>> things very complex.
>
> Caller locks the callee mailbox for a moment to put a message. 
> Doesn't lock any other thread, so you can have N/2 threads 
> writing to other N/2 at the same time.

I think there is a misunderstanding about what I meant by "global 
mailbox".

>> In my program, I have simple objects: "Manager"s, that spawn a 
>> child thread to
>> do work. This works fine if I have a single Manager, but how 
>> do I manage having
>> 2 Managers at once?
>
> It's generally a very bad idea to have more than 1 manager over 
> one's head. :)
>
>> What should a manager do if it calls "receive", and notices 
>> the message wasn't
>> meant for him?
>
> Don't know. Kill the messenger perhaps? :)