Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied

Appendix. A Minimalist Multithreading Library

A multithreaded program has multiple points of execution at the same time. Practically, this means that in a multithreaded program you can have multiple functions running at once. On a multiprocessor computer, different threads might run literally simultaneously. On a single-processor machine, a multithreading-capable operating system will apply time slicing—it chops each thread at short time intervals, suspends it, and gives another thread some processor time. Multithreading gives the user the impression that multiple things happen at once. For instance, a word processor can verify grammar while letting the user enter text.

Users don’t like to see the hourglass cursor, so we programmers must write ...