This would be a cool template project to learn C++ without the pollution of LLM slop.
Simulating Infinity in Conway's Game of Life with Modern C++
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Re: Simulating Infinity in Conway's Game of Life with Modern C++
#12It seems like the thread_local CacheIndex only determines which cache to use, but it doesn't actually guarantee thread safety for concurrent access to the HashLifeCache itself. What would be a good solution for this? Should I use a mutex for each cache instance? As a beginner developer, my guess is that the original author assumes data races won't occur based on the execution timing. However, I'm really not sure if t…
In my view, thread_local is a bit of a code/design red flag. I didn't read the entire code in this case to see whether the thread_local use is warranted or not, though.
a thread_local is just a global variable. Mutable global variables are of course bad, but in this case the threadindex is immutable once created, so it is perfectly fine.
Re: Simulating Infinity in Conway's Game of Life with Modern C++
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my view, thread_local is a bit of a code/design red flag. I didn't read the entire code in this case to see whether the thread_local use is warranted or not, though.
a thread_local is just a global variable. Mutable global variables are of course bad, but in this case the threadindex is immutable once created, so it is perfectly fine.
Yes, technically it is of course fine, just as a design I find use of thread_local is more of an afterthought than something I'd prefer.
Re: Simulating Infinity in Conway's Game of Life with Modern C++
#14Interesting approach. I like that the implementation focuses on scalability rather than only visualization.
It's extremely inefficient, using pointers to neighboring cells.
If you want to handle the grid edges (whether for a wrap-around "infinite" grid, or not) without too much special code, then leave a 1-cell border around the grid and fill this with the appropriate data (empty cells, or wraparound cells). If you really want to be efficient then just write the special-case edge code.
Re: Simulating Infinity in Conway's Game of Life with Modern C++
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then immediately afterwards we see const T* in a supposedly immutable data structure meaning the pointer remains mutable. Yet another classic footgun.
It looked to me like most of the raw pointers in the blog were const. Sometimes you don't want the baggage of smart pointers and getting a cheap easily copyable view of your data is nice, so you want to return a const T . Usually if an API returns a const T I assume lifetimes are handled for me and that the ptr is valid as long as it is not nullptr.
I just double checked and don't see any const pointers, only mutable pointers to const data.