Then we should probably also have hb_criticalsection*()
functions instead of hb_mutex*() to not use two different
terminologies in different parts of Harbour.
Critical is a programming terminology from a lower level
perspective (I wouldn't want to elaborate on the possible
roots of the term, but it looks to originate from low level
OS programming), and there, critical may indeed mean critical,
but in Harbour .prg level this looks like a way too harsh
word and seems to be somewhat disconnected from the world
of such a high level programming language. "critical section"
seems to mean a subset of the more generic term "mutex".
No wonder high level languages (C#/Java/XBase++) don't use
the "critical section" terminology.
If you read the wikipedia article to the end, it turns out
that POSIX calls "critical sections" simply "mutex", and
the only cited example where it's called "critical sections"
is in Windows itself, which is an operating system, where
such name can even have a real meaning on that low level.
They've probably named it that way because they've used
up "mutex" for the inter-process variation. (this is in
sync with C#, but there they've named intra-process,
aka 'critical sections' ones simply 'locks', probably for
similar reason I'm trying to show).
Also, "critical" by itself doesn't mean anything above, it's
always used in conjunction with "section", so the term
is "critical section". If we say "critical function/procedure",
or just "critical" as a single word, to me it looks something
completely different.
Java uses the keyword "mutexed" which IMO tells it best
that a given object is automatically protected by a mutex.
Brgds,
Viktor
On 2008.10.31., at 12:51, Alex Strickland wrote:
Przemyslaw Czerpak wrote:
CRITICAL FUNCTION | PROCEDURE probably is quite easy
to understand term in current days. Opinions?
I like it, it immediately made me think of "critical sections", and
when I looked them up on Wikipedia it said:
"In concurrent programming a critical section is a piece of code
that accesses a shared resource (data structure or device) that must
not be concurrently accessed by more than one thread of execution."
which matches your intent well I think.
2c
Alex
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