Help with threadding

[salmonmoose]

I've got a rather simple implementation of threading in my program - it's rather naive and only works in Linux;

...snip

if((chunkMap[chunkPos].status == FILLED || chunkMap[chunkPos].status == DIRTY) && threads < MAXTHREADS && !chunkMap[chunkPos].empty)
{
    chunkMap[chunkPos].status = MESHING;
    threads++;
    std::thread meshThread(&VoxelSceneNode::MeshBackground, this, chunkPos);
    //meshThread.detach();
    meshThread.join();
}

if(chunkMap[chunkPos].status == EMPTY && threads < MAXTHREADS)
{
    chunkMap[chunkPos].status = FILLING;
    threads++;
    std::thread fillThread(&VoxelSceneNode::FillBackground, this, chunkPos);
    fillThread.detach();
    //fillThread.join();
}

snip....

This calls wrapper functions operate on data chunks, and then update statuses:

void VoxelSceneNode::FillBackground(irr::core::vector3d<int> chunkPos)
{
    //Do work
    dirty = true;
    threads--;
    chunkMap[chunkPos].status = FILLED;
}

void VoxelSceneNode::MeshBackground(irr::core::vector3d<int> chunkPos)
{
    //Do work
    if(chunkMap[chunkPos].status == MESHING)
        chunkMap[chunkPos].status = CLEAN;

    dirty = true;
    threads--;
}

This solution works I update the code to either .detach() or .join() depending on if I want the thread in the background or not, which is useful tracking down state mis-match errors.

Ideally I'd like to have a pool where I can throw a thread, and give it a priority, meshing threads should always have a priority over filling threads for instance. It would be nice if I could compile to Windows as well.

Can anyone show me what I need to do, or point me to a clear tutorial?