Subj : Re: Two semaphore questions
To   : comp.programming.threads
From : Gianni Mariani
Date : Sat Mar 05 2005 09:18 am

Ian Pilcher wrote:
> Two newbie questions about (realtime) semaphores:

....
> 
>     Other than the need to initialize the semaphore, is there a reason
>     not to use the semaphore?

There are much lighter weight mechanisms you can use for reference 
counting but they vary on a platform by platform basis.

I suggest you look at implementations out there.  Austria C++ for 
example has atomic operations for x86 and win32 platforms:

http://austria.sourceforge.net/dox/html/at__gx86__atomic_8h-source.html
http://austria.sourceforge.net/dox/html/at__win32__atomic_8h-source.html

(OSX support will come out soon for Austria C++).

.