Need advice on using threads

[DOYLE@SISU.MGH.HARVARD.EDU]

Greetings!

I need some advice on incorporating some functionality from
the new threads manager into our product. I know that this will 
be built into MCL, but I may need it sooner. I know that building
threads into MCL itself is too hard a problem (for me at least!),
but I think I can use something simpler.

Most of the areas where I need to use threads are in networking, image 
processing, and driver routines. These portions of my system are written in
C (MCL uses them either via the component manager or the foreign function
interface). 

 I believe I have two alternatives:

1. Make MCL the main thread and use *eventhook* (and perhaps certain
    state transistions)  for yielding time to the other lightweight tasks
    which are written in C. 

2. Create a background C application which used threads and would
    communicate with MCL via AppleEvents.

I would prefer alternative #1 since less would have to be implemented, and
after MCL supported threads the code could be folded back into MCL.

Suggestions? Thanks!


Sean Doyle
RSTAR, Inc.
doyle@sisu.mgh.harvard.edu