std::thread - naming your thread

Question

The new C++ has this std::thread type. Works like a charm. Now I would like to give each thread a name for more easy debugging (like java allows you to). With pthreads I wou

Answer 1

I've both seen this done in a system predating c++11 (where we basically invented our own Thread class that was very similar to std::thread) and in one I wrote fairly recently.

Basically, the pool really puts std::thread 2 layers down- you have a PoolThread class that contains a std::thread plus metadata like its name, ID, etc. and the the control structure that links it to its controlling pool, and the ThreadPool itself. You want to use thread pools in most threaded code for several reasons:
1) You can hide all the explicit "detach", "join", start thread on std::thread construction, etc. from users. That produces MUCH safer & cleaner code.
2) Better resource management: Too many threads will cripple performance even more than having too few. A well-built pool can do advanced things like automatic load balancing and cleaning-up hung or deadlocked threads.
3) Thread reuse: std::thread by itself is easiest to use by running every parallel task on its own thread. But thread creation & destruction are expensive, and can easily swamp the speed boost from parallel processing if you're not careful. So, it usually makes more sense to have pool threads that pull work tasks from a queue and only exit after receiving some signal.
4) Error handling: std::thread is just an execution context. If the task you're running on it throws an un-handled exception or std::thread ITSELF fails, the process will just crash right there. To do fault-tolerant multithreading, you need a Pool or something similar that can quickly catch such things and at least emit meaningful error messages before the process dies.