Re: Are rendezvous dead?

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

"Pat Rogers" <progers@classwide.com> wrote in message
news:sYfu8.157$h24.105729203@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
>
>
> If tasks require _direct_ communication/synchronization, rendezvous is
generally
> the right way to go for that specific part of their behavior.  Otherwise,
> protected objects are preferable.
>
>
There are a variety of Object Oriented design idioms I've run into recently
dealing with Active Objects and how they might communicate with each other.
For a number of these idioms the Ada rendesvous is a simple, direct
representation that would likely be more efficient than cobbling together
the same answer using protected objects (or some other mechanism). For other
idioms, the heavy weight of the rendezvous is the proverbial Brick Outhouse
and often it is harder to do this way. (e.g. a mailbox where you just want
to leave data for another task to process when it gets around to it.) For
the lighter-weight communication and synchronization, protected objects are
a real blessing & improvement over Ada83.

You really want to have both kinds of tools in the toolbox because design
needs vary. I'd see the rendezvous and protected types both being available
to the designer as a major advantage that Ada has over many other languages.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com