On Tue, 19 Mar 2024 22:19:50 GMT, David Holmes <dhol...@openjdk.org> wrote:
>> In fact, it appears as if the problem is with the use of "any", which is >> universal in strength, whereas the intention here is existential in strength >> (as suggested by. my wording). Indeed, you might achieve the same effect by >> replacing "any" with "some" so that: >> >> "An object is reachable if it can be accessed in some continuing computation >> from some live thread." >> >> You needn't even say live because dead threads can neither take steps nor >> continue participating in the computation nor can they "access" objects for >> whatever informal notion of access. The "some continuing computation" >> subsumes "potential" (as in a possible future) so potential can be dropped. > > I think you are overthinking this somewhat Ramki. I don't see a practical > (non discrete-math) distinction between "some" and "any", so would not object > to that single word change if it helps. But "potential" should remain as it > covers branching in the program whereby if we proceed down one branch an > object remains reachable, whereas if we precede down another then it may not. I don't think changing "any" to "some" is helpful. I think "any" is ambiguous regarding meaning universal or existential strength. The sense used here is, considering the possible future execution paths of a thread, if any of them accesses the object, that object is reachable. In other words, it means "any one" and not "all". ------------- PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/16644#discussion_r1531198317
