Re: [tlug] STM (was: Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo)

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:44:13 +0900
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com> wrote:

> Attila Kinali writes:
>  > Does STM work in real world applications?
> 
> Of course it does, if you pick the right applications.  That's my
> point, though, knowing which applications and how to factor them to use
> STM effectively is probably equivalent to the general concurrency
> problem at the present time.

For any given solution, you only have to pick the right
problem to make it look good.
 
>  > What i think the problem is, that our programming languages
>  > today have a very bad abstraction of concurency and that
>  > the solution lies in the programming language rather then
>  > in a new way of locking.
> 
> But that's exactly the way SP-J sells STM in his chapter in /Beautiful
> Code/, as a better abstraction of concurrency.

I've read it, though not completely understood. But IMHO
STM is not the silver bullet to solve all concurency problems.
Actually, i think STM has more problems under the hood than
does conventional locking have. But it does serve as a different
abstraction to see problems in a different light.

What i find very disturbing is, that so many research hours
are spend on how to apply STM to a certain problem or even how
to implement it in a clever way instead of having a look at
its often obious and already well documented deficiencies and
try to come up with a better solution (and be it only a
modification of STM).


				Attila Kinali
-- 
The true CS students do not need to know how to program.
They learn how to abstract the process of programming to
the point of making programmers obsolete.
		-- Jabber in #holo