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Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:57:14 -0700
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@acm.org>
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To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
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cc: rwatson@freebsd.org
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Subject: Re: Dynamic reads without locking.
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Terry Lambert wrote:
> For certain uses, however, it's safe to not lock before the
> read *on Intel architectures*.  This can go out the window on
> SPARC or PPC, or any architecture where there is no guarantee
> that there won't be speculative execution or out-of-order
> execution without explicit synchronization.

Even on Intel architectures, the compiler can and will reorder
operations.  Hardware-level issues are only a part of the story.

I followed the Java Memory Model mailing lists for a while.
A lot of very bright, very experienced people thought they
had found ways to avoid locking and were wrong.

This stuff is hard.  Do NOT underestimate it.

Tim