Subj : Re: Lock Free -- where to start
To   : comp.programming.threads
From : Chris Thomasson
Date : Sun Oct 02 2005 07:51 pm

>> If it seems possible by clever design to reduce the time
>> spent holding a lock to almost nothing, bear in mind
>> that on recent Pentiums just acquiring the lock is going
>> to take over a hundred machine cycles; there is a
>> limit.
>
>    The lock-free algorithms generally increase the number of such 
> expensive operations,

Not all of them...


> and they add extra cache misses.

A good reader/writer solution can greatly enhance cache performance. If you 
really want to be "cache friendly", try to avoid calling atomic operation 
and/or StoreLoad style membar instructions.

.