Re: [boost] [lockfree] review

Subject: Re: [boost] [lockfree] review
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-07-29 19:36:03

on Fri Jul 29 2011, Gordon Woodhull <gordon-AT-woodhull.com> wrote:

> On Jul 29, 2011, at 3:00 PM, Tim Blechmann wrote:
>>> IMO the big question with a library like this is not so much the design as
>>> the correctness.  What can we do as reviewers to verify the correctness,
>>> assuming we are not lockfree gurus ourselves?  Go back to the original
>>> sources.  So I did; see below.
>> 
>> well, there is one problem about the publications done by the lock-free gurus: 
>> they don't care about the implementation, but assume a sequencially consistent 
>> memory model, so they don't need to care about the required memory barriers or 
>> the like ...
>
> Yes.  Your rationale that the default options for atomic operations
> should ensure sequential consistency makes sense to me (from my
> limited experience).

Personally I never understood how sequential consistency could be much
of a help in reasoning about multithreaded programs... but that's just
me.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com