OK, we've beaten the producer/consumer thread/coro model to death. Here's a different use of threads: how simple can we make this in P6:
sub slow_func { my $percent_done = 0; my $tid = thread { slow_func_imp( \$percent_done ) }; thread { status_monitor($percent_done) and sleep 60 until $tid.done }; return wait $tid; } I think this would work under Austin's A17; but it feels a bit clunky. The fact that the "sleep 60" isn't broken as soon as the function is done is untidy, though I wouldn't want to start killing thread. perhaps: { ... $tid = thread { slow... } status_monitor(\$percent_done) and wait(60 | $tid) until $tid.done; return $tid.result; } The thing is, that "wait 60" probably can't work -- replace C<60> with C<$period>, and the semantics change. There are some obvious hacks that could work here: but is there a really nice solution. Ideally, we won't need the low level details such as C<$tid> Dave.