Subj : Re: RCU+SMR To : comp.programming.threads From : Randy Howard Date : Fri Jul 08 2005 03:22 pm Joe Seigh wrote (in article ): > Randy Howard wrote: >> On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:06:52 -0500, Joe Seigh wrote >> (in article <3cqdnbE9cbI2C1nfRVn-ig@comcast.com>): >> >>> And as you can see by this topic practically being a monologue, >>> there's no huge demand for this kind of stuff, so I'm taking >>> advantage of the more leisurely schedule that allows. >> >> >> I wonder if lack of portability is partly to blame? >> >> What would be the minimal number of extensions to C (or >> whatever) that would allow this to be implemented portably by a >> compiler supporting, for example 'C99+atomic'? > > That topic pops up from time to time. It doesn't go anywhere > due to lack of interest. Very few people use that kind of stuff. > There are some api's out there like atomic_ops here > http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/qprof/ > but it's fairly limited. I'll take a look at it, thanks. >> If you can quantify that, you might actually be able to make a >> case for language extensions so that lock-free algorithms can be >> used in cross-platform production projects. > > It's mostly a chicken and egg question. Present usage doesn't > justify putting in the features. Fair enough. >> I would be very interested in anything along those lines, but as >> long as it is either OS-centric, CPU-centric, or both, I don't >> see much value in it for the type of software I am involved >> with. > > You have to start somewhere and I can't exactly port to hardware > I don't have. Understood, for the record, I was not shooting darts at your approach, just stating why I personally can't use it as is. Hopefully you didn't misread that as an attack or something along those lines. > Apple is getting off of ppc and I'm not going to buy propietary > hardware just for the privelege of porting to it. Well, I can't argue with that approach. I just bought a G5 dual powermac (about a month before the switch). First Apple computer in my life, having avoided them for decades, then boom, I get shot between the eyes. :-) Oh well, at least its a decent box and gives me another testbed to play with, despite its long-term boat anchor status. > You get what you pay for. Free software gets little or no > support. It seems to depend upon the software's usage (in volume). A very few OSS projects get massive support because they appeal to a very broad audience, but they are the exception. > The other thing here is api's are a really hard sell. True. That's why I was wondering about standardization. With all the pushing for SMP, dual-core, multi-core, (and the abomination known as "hyperthreading", you would think some of the big names (like Intel and AMD) would be pushing for ways to get the most out of new processor features and parallelism without everyone having to roll their own. Oh well, I guess it will be a long time before this sort of thing is widely used enough to become more generally applicable to portable software. -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .