It's 2006. I'm working with threads in C and it's awful

[silvermoon82@wandering.shop]

@eniko
pthreads! The "g" is for "good"

[analog_feelings@tech.lgbt]

@eniko how do threads even work on C, function pointers?

[gildilinie@beige.party]

@silvermoon82 @eniko fozzie bear dot gif

[lisyarus@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko 2011 - present: I'm working with threads in C++ and it's great (mostly)

[halla@kde.social]

@eniko Well, yes... But rest assured, threads in C++ are awful. Threads in Java are awful. Threads in Python are double-plus awful.

And they're still needed, so have an ice cream (or other treat) every time you added tread-using code to your project.

[theeclecticdyslexic@mstdn.social]

@eniko this is why I use thread pools in languages that support them ootb, combine their results in the main thread, and pretend that no other use cases exist.

[nuintari@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@eniko Hey, consistency ain't nothing to be dismissed lightly.

[khleedril@cyberplace.social]

@eniko Sorry to use the R-word, but... #Rust

[passocacornio@tech.lgbt]

@eniko oh goddesses, you were suffering with C back in 2006? oh wow! (2006 I was still dreaming I would be a writer)

[ericsedge@bitbang.social]

@eniko I’ll join in with a bit of paraphrasing.

It’s 1987. I’m forking this process in C and my library code isn’t reentrant….

[pixx@merveilles.town]

@eniko

/winces

Can i ask what about it?

[landelare@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko It's 2026. [...] C [...] i[...]s awful

[lisyarus@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@analog_feelings @eniko Yup: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/pthread_create.3.html

[gureito@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko in my head-canon, that's the reason we got erlang, go, rust.......

(it's 1996 and threads in C is awful, it's 1986 and threads in C is awful......)

[kirtai@tech.lgbt]

@khleedril @eniko
I recently read that Rust uses pretty much the same thread model as C++.

[khleedril@cyberplace.social]

@kirtai @eniko The model might be the same, but the guardrails are there...

[kirtai@tech.lgbt]

@khleedril @eniko
Are they though?
Threads have a lot more problems than memory issues

[dbat@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@eniko sounds like threads should be called dreads.

[khleedril@cyberplace.social]

@kirtai @eniko It is true that rust can't stop you locking up, but, hell, having the memory issues mostly sorted is a massive win, is it not?

[raptor85@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@lisyarus @eniko yeah, C++11's std::thread interface is great, makes it extremely simple to set up stuff like thread pooling and generic worker threads.