Pthreads in Visual C++

Question

I'm experimenting with multithreading in Windows and was wondering whether I should

• use Win32 API
• use POSIX Threads for Windows

Learning Pthreads would be useful if I tried to develop such applications on different platforms - but am I losing anything by not learning Win32 API? Or are both similar enough so that learning one allows me to figure out the other easily?

Answer 1

1. Use Boost Threads. When C++0x comes along, we will have std::threads. Boost threads has the closest implementation to std threads.

2. else use pthreads. Pthreads is second closest to std::threads, and formed the main basis of std threads and boost threads.

3. else do windows threading directly. You can still learn how threads work, and form a mental model of things. It just tends to use synchronization primitives that are a bit non-standard.

Answer 2

If you're going to do much Windows programming, it will pay to learn the basic Win32 threading constructs: critical sections, interlocked functions, CreateThread, WaitFor*Object, etc. These aren't hard to understand, and they translate transparently to equivalent objects in other threading frameworks.

However, for more advanced threading constructs such as semaphores, events, etc., I would use the pthreads library, since the documentation on those tends to be clearer and examples more abundant.