C++ using this pointer in constructors

Question

In C++, during a class constructor, I started a new thread with this pointer as a parameter which will be used in the thread extensively (say, call

Answer 1

I'd say that, as a general rule, you should avoid doing this. But you can certainly get away with it in many circumstances. I think there are basically two things that can go wrong:

1. The new thread might try to access the object before the constructor finishes initializing it. You can work around this by making sure all initialization is complete before you start the thread. But what if someone inherits from your class? You have no control over what their constructor will do.
2. What happens if your thread fails to start? There isn't really a clean way to handle errors in a constructor. You can throw an exception, but this is perilous since it means that your object's destructor will not get called. If you elect not to throw an exception, then you're stuck writing code in your various methods to check if things were initialized properly.

Generally speaking, if you have complex, error-prone initialization to perform, then it's best to do it in a method rather than the constructor.