I've had several attempts at installing Thread::Pool, both using CPAN.pm and manually, and I cannot persuade Thread::Tie to pass it test suite amongst other failures. Maybe that's a win32 thing, but maybe not.

However, I'd have to conclude that Thread::Pool is not ready for prime time. And unless liz pops her head up to say otherwise, as far as I know, she is no longer actively developing her raft of Thead::* modules.

That said, I've never found the need for this level of abstraction with threads. Creating and managing a pool of threads is so easy to do natively--usually 5 to 10 lines of code--that I would probably never use (or create) a tool to do this for me.

Please do not construe this to mean that threads are broken or unusable. That would be like downloading Math::BigInt::Roman, having problems with it, and declaring that Perl can't count.

Since 5.8.3, I've found iThreads to be extremely stable and usable, though they do require a little thought and care to use well (no surprise there). On my platform, I would say they are production ready, but your milage may vary.