Re: [boost] [lockfree::fifo] Review

Subject: Re: [boost] [lockfree::fifo] Review
From: Helge Bahmann (hcb_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-12-11 12:59:05

Am Friday 11 December 2009 17:07:58 schrieb Gottlob Frege:
> > The message should however be clear: ll/sc is *brittle* and not usable
> > for ABA prevention.
> >
> > Helge
>
> Sad thing is that if some of those brittle restrictions could be
> removed, ll/sc could be a more useful than CAS. And unfortunately 
> C++0x seems to be leanings towards CAS, and that might discourage
> other alternatives.

What _are_ the alternatives? Transactional memory systems have been 
promised "real soon now", but are not there yet, and standardizing something 
unimplementable helps no one. 

In my opinion the problem is something entirely different: When you need 
a "queue" concept, you will highly likely immediately choose a doubly-linked 
list without further thought. The thing that turned out to be really 
difficult is the construction of direct wait-free equivalents of such 
seemingly "simple" specific data structures.

This has not prevented programmers who had no trouble constructing 
data-structures custom-tailored to their specific purpose from being very 
successful with just CAS. This track record, the many instances of code using 
locking that could be replaced with wait-free methods (see e.g. my wait-free 
signal/slot library) and the theoretical results showing CAS to be universal 
make me quite content with CAS.

Helge