asynchronous dispatcher in ruby

dispatcher.rb

# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17499021/io-bound-threads-in-ruby

require 'thread'

class PoisonPill; end

def asyncDispatcher(numWorkers, stateArray, &processor)
  q = Queue.new
  threads = []

  (1..numWorkers).each do
    threads << Thread.new(processor) do |processor|
      while true
        next_state = q.shift # blocks if q is empty, which is the case initially
        break if next_state.is_a? PoisonPill # causes all workers to stop
        processor.call(next_state)
      end
    end
  end

  stateArray.each {|state| q.push state} # load the queue with initial states
  stateArray.each {q.push PoisonPill.new} # add the poison pill.

  threads.each(&:join) # wait for remaining workers
  return # avoid returning useless thread refs
end