Question

In my previous question I’ve asked, I touched the parallel_for subject from ppl.h provided by Microsoft.
But shortly after I’ve realized that by using it one makes his application unportable (if I’m right it is specific to Microsoft (the ppl.h header)).
In my opinion this breaks very important aspect of programming in C++ – portability, and I’m just not prepare to do it.
So my questions are:
1. Am I right in saying that using parallel_for from ppl makes your code unportable (by unportable I mean that it cannot be compiled by other compiler than the one from MS)
2. Am I right in saying that if on later stage I want to provide UI (done in Qt) for the application I’m working on at the momment, using parallel_for in my code will be an obstruction which would mean that either I’ll replace parallel_for with some other (portable) alternative or I won’t be able to do UI in Qt and core in VS?
3. What are the (portable) alternatives to ppl?

Answer 1

You may want to consider Intel’s Thread Building Blocks. Unlike OpenMP, TBB actually uses C++, rather than simply compiling under a C++ compiler (ie: being a C library that can compile as C++). It has many of the things you see in PPL, but it is cross-platform.

There is also Boost.Thread, which is C++ (though not quite as direct as TBB is), and it is cross-platform.