Are Callbacks A Bad Idea?
Someone was asking me yesterday why I think that Callbacks are such a bad idea. Firstly let's define exactly what a Callback is in terms of computer programming in C, C++, or Java.
Many people use callbacks as a form of RPC. The user implements an abstract interface, in the OOP world, or a function pointer in the non-OOP world. When the underlying API needs to notify the calling application of an event then it calls the Callback function specified by the calling application. This is the crux of the problem, as I see it, the calling application specifies what action is to take place within the Callback and this is potentially very hazarous to the API's efficiency.
For example, what would happen if an API called a Callback and the Callback decided to sleep for 10 seconds? The API would loose control of the thread which called the Callback for that 10 seconds and could potentially be dead in the water unless it has other threads available for work. By definition a Callback needs to execute quickly otherwise the application risks slowing the API down. Unfortunately the application and the API may have two completely different ideas as to what quickly means.
Rather than use Callbacks I would propose that the use of Semaphores is far more sensible. Using a Semaphore you can notify a thread that an event has taken place without any risk to yourself that the notification will take any significant amount of time. If you use a Callback you have no way to predict how much time the Callback will require to execute and return control back to code which you have, the API author, control over. Note that I'm proposing the use of a Semaphore rather than simply a Synchronization Object, in Java, or an Event in Win32 since a Semaphore is capable of being triggered multiple times and retains the knowledge of how many times it was triggered, i.e. an Event is bistate, 0 or 1, true or false, however, a Semaphore maintains a reference count. This allows a Semaphore to be triggered for multiple events and for the application to service each of those events.
Have you had a callback problem in any of your programs?
Good luck with your inter-thread communication, if you have any additional thoughts please leave a comment or email your question, which you'd like me to answer for free, to Ben Dash at ben.dash@gmail.com
posted by Ben Dash @ 4/27/2005 10:55:00 AM
4 Comments:
Wow - I hadn't thought of it like that. I won't use callbacks anymore, they're just a liability! Thanks!!!
As far as i know, there is no tool that can determine the complete call graph when a program use callbacks (function pointers). Therefore, it is impossible to determine theoricly (well, except doint it by hand wich could took weeks and prone to errors)how much stack an application is using wich is unaceptable in safety critical software (what i do).
I work on embedded SW with bare boards (no operating system).
We use callbacks to let driver notify application, but the concerns you describe generally do not apply because out callbacks are simple and uniform: they only post an event in a queue.
However some people here are more and more sensible to this problem.
How would you implement semaphore logic in bare board, plain C ?
Hi!
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