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authorAndy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>2016-11-06 19:00:29 +0100
committerAndy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>2016-11-06 19:00:29 +0100
commitf8de9808ed6e8c16f20ba5abd803ecb437138a54 (patch)
treebee45f50bc6396ebab4ed58e71c90cf0e10aab60 /NEWS
parent2c0c6414bb030eb3b185d8da427330666815a6ce (diff)
Update NEWS.
* NEWS: Update.
Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
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@@ -21,6 +21,52 @@ break, however; we used the deprecation facility to signal a warning
message while also providing these bindings in the root environment for
the duration of the 2.2 series.
+** SRFI-18 threads, mutexes, cond vars disjoint from Guile
+
+When we added support for the SRFI-18 threading library in Guile 2.0, we
+did so in a way that made SRFI-18 mutexes the same as Guile mutexes.
+This was a mistake. In Guile our goal is to provide basic,
+well-thought-out, well-implemented, minimal primitives, on top of which
+we can build a variety of opinionated frameworks. Incorporating SRFI-18
+functionality into core Guile caused us to bloat and slow down our core
+threading primitives. Worse, they became very hard to describe; they
+did many things, did them poorly, and all that they did was never
+adequately specified.
+
+For all of these reasons we have returned to a situation where SRFI-18
+concepts are implemented only in the `(srfi srfi-18)' module. This
+means that SRFI-18 threads are built on Guile threads, but aren't the
+same as Guile threads; calling Guile `thread?' on a thread no longer
+returns true.
+
+We realize this causes inconvenience to users who use both Guile
+threading interfaces and SRFI-18 interfaces, and we lament the change --
+but we are better off now. We hope the newly revised "Scheduling"
+section in the manual compensates for the headache.
+
+** Remove `lock-mutex' "owner" argument
+
+Mutex owners are a SRFI-18 concept; use SRFI-18 mutexes instead.
+Relatedly, `scm_lock_mutex_timed' taking the owner argument is now
+deprecated; use `scm_timed_lock_mutex' instead.
+
+** Remove `unlock-mutex' cond var and timeout arguments
+
+It used to be that `unlock-mutex' included `wait-condition-variable'
+functionality. This has been deprecated; use SRFI-18 if you want this
+behavior from `mutex-unlock!'. Relatedly, `scm_unlock_mutex_timed is
+deprecated; use `scm_unlock_mutex' instead.
+
+** Removed `unchecked-unlock' mutex flag
+
+This flag was introduced for internal use by SRFI-18; use SRFI-18
+mutexes if you need this behaviour.
+
+** SRFI-18 mutexes no longer recursive
+
+Contrary to specification, SRFI-18 mutexes in Guile were recursive.
+This is no longer the case.
+
** Thread cleanup handlers removed
The `set-thread-cleanup!' and `thread-cleanup' functions that were added
@@ -51,6 +97,11 @@ make sure you're in a "scm_dynwind_begin (0)" and use
scm_dynwind_pthread_mutex_lock instead, possibly also with
scm_dynwind_block_asyncs.
+** `scm_make_mutex_with_flags' deprecated
+
+Use `scm_make_mutex_with_kind' instead. See "Mutexes and Condition
+Variables" in the manual, for more.
+
* Bug fixes
** cancel-thread uses asynchronous interrupts, not pthread_cancel