Resource Management

The Event Loop

The event loop contains a collection of jobs to be run. Some jobs are added by application code, and others indirectly by asyncio. The event loop takes a job from its backlog and invokes it (“gives it control”). Once that job pauses or completes, it returns control to the event loop which then selects another job from the backlog and invokes it. When there are no jobs to be done, the event loop rests (doesn’t waster CPU cycles) and comes back when more jobs are enqueued.

Introduction

Threads are smaller units of a process that allow executing tasks in parallel, sharing memory space. Threads are particularly useful for I/O bound tasks, where much of the time is spent waiting for external resources.

Resource Handles

The constructor/destructor pattern enables objects defined in a scope to release the resources during exit from the scope, even when exceptions are thrown. All standard-library containers, e.g. std::vector, are implemented as resource handles.

std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr

These “smart pointers” are useful in managing objects that are allocated on the free store (as opposed to those allocated on the stack).