Re: Complexity of protected objects

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

"tony gair" <tonygair@nespamtome.btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a5dont$dh9$1@helle.btinternet.com...
>
> J Barnes recommends that  protected objects be as small as possible, so
> being a little
> bloody minded I want to see what the limits are for protected objects ,

The usual reason for this is that since a protected object is going to
create what amounts to a "critical section" you don't want to spend any more
time in one than you have to. One thread running through a long protected
object's code is going to block out other threads from accessing it - hence
the "keep it short" advice.

I don't know of any natural limitations that would make it A Bad Thing to
have a very large protected object. AFAIK, its only a concern for how long
it will block execution of other tasks that limit size. The rest would be
whatever limitations your compiler may impose.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
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