From: Dmitry A. Kazakov on
On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:26:30 +0100, Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:

> Hibou57 (Yannick Duch�ne) a �crit :
>> [...]
>> Sure a procedure of a protected type or object should be short and
>> quick to execute, but it seems to still remains potentially blocking.
>
> There are two kinds of blockings: bounded and unbounded. The idea is
> that when computing a time budget, you can account for bounded
> blockings, but not unbounded ones.

I use another idiom: "instant" and "delayed". "Delayed" can be bounded, so
"delay D" being not unbounded is still not instant. "Instant" means that
whatever delay is caused by the call that does not change the program
semantics, as defined and to be respected by the programmer. Which is a
more or less formal definition for "short and quick".

On the caller's side protected procedures and functions are instant =
non-blocking. Protected entries are delayed = potentially blocking.

--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de