To answer your earlier question, yes there were a lot of issues in the existing codebase, more so in the qa suite.
The biggest obstacle to overcome with an incremental upgrade approach will be finding stable points and determining what to leave out. An initial step release might be to leave out new org.apache.river infrastructure, it's difficult to tell at this stage how stable a release with only some of the concurrency fixes might be, given that it stil hasn't quite stabilised yet, however we are very close, having fixed a swathe of issues. On another topic, the last commited changes appears related to the arm test failures, there's a loop with a wait call that releases synchronization, the method used to terminate the loop was changed from using synchronization to using a volatile field, this may allow the loop to break out earlier. I'm not sure whether it's just changed timing or is directly influencing it. Please have a look and see what you think: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/river/jtsk/skunk/qa_refactor/trunk/src/com/sun/jini/outrigger/OperationJournal.java?view=log Regards, Peter. ----- Original message ----- > > See comments below... > > Greg. > > On Tue, 2013-06-11 at 15:32, Peter wrote: > > Currenty Entry objects are packaged in a MarshalledWrapper by Outrigger's > > and > > Reggie's proxy code. By making fields in MarshalledWrapper final, we can > > achieve safe publication in River. This doesn't help Entry's shared among > > threads in client code performing calculations and storing results in an > > Entry > > prior to being submitted back to a Javaspace. > > > > Because Entry fields are public, we can't do much to ensure client code is > > sharing them safely. > > > > I'm more concerned client code will perform unsafe mutations that are > > outside > > our control. In that case a Javaspace proxy might not see the last write to > > an Entry field. > > > > We can't control what the client does. > > > Perhaps all we can do is create a web page with best practices? > > > > I could really use a hand getting this set up, I'm bogged down at present > > and > > don't feel like I'm making much progress. The positive discussion about > > these > > issues is heartening. > > > Although important, it's not urgent. So don't beat yourself to death > over it. I'm focussed on the container for now. Also how to > incorporate all the trunk changes in an orderly fashion. > > > I did see an Oracle blog post that proposed immutable arrays as a feature > > in a > > future Java version. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Peter. > > > > ----- Original message ----- > > > It is very important for us to get this "publish" stuff nailed down so > > > that > > > there are no problems that keep resurfacing because of this important > > > part of > > > the JMM. > > > > > > We might need to look at the Unsafe class for help with "fences" that > > > could > > > help us "commit" changes to memory in a way that eliminates locks, and > > > keeps > > > developers from littering their code with things which while "necessary", > > > are > > > subject to misuse, abuse and lack thereof, in such a way as to create > > > these > > > mysterious behaviors which are almost always epic to discover the root > > > cause. > > > > > > For example, using fences on java spaces "writes" as well as "reads" could > > > be an important "boundary" to establish between threads. Inbound > > > "notifications" don't need fences except when they explicitly cross thread > > > boundaries. Using "synchronized" on methods which change ownership > > > between > > > threads, has always been the "correct" way to manage APIs which included > > > threading. But, volatile since JDK1.5, has provided a non-blocking > > > "correct" behavior for non-array-content values. If we don't want to use > > > synchronized, then Unsafe fences may be the only way to make things work > > > for > > > arrays as well. > > > > > > Gregg Wonderly > > > > > > On Jun 11, 2013, at 8:01 AM, Greg Trasuk <tras...@stratuscom.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > So if I understand correctly, we need to make sure that any parameters > > > > that are passed through the boundary of River code (e.g. anything that > > > > implements JavaSpace05) need to be marked volatile (can you do that on > > > > parameters) or stored to a volatile variable. Or there needs to be a > > > > synchronized block that reads the queues. That sounds moderately > > > > doable. Is the volatility transitive? i.e. If I make sure that an > > > > Entry is part of a "happens-before" event, are the fields on the objects > > > > referenced by that entry also published? > > > > > > > > Personally, synchronized is the only thing I've ever trusted. When I > > > > see things like shared, non-synchronized variables, I think "There be > > > > dragons here". Is there a lot of that in the codebase? > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > > > Greg. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Tue, 2013-06-11 at 08:45, Peter wrote: > > > > > Ok, so we need to make sure we safely publish an Entry to a volatile > > > > > field after modifications or make an Entry's fields volatile. > > > > > > > > > > Did you know that JERI uses a multiplexing thread pool core? > > > > > > > > > > Even when our code appears to be single threaded, once it's exported, > > > > > it > > > > > becomes visible to many threads. > > > > > > > > > > To avoid potential deadlock from dependant tasks executing out of > > > > > order > > > > > JERI always creates a new thread if no free threads are available in > > > > > its > > > > > internal thread pool. > > > > > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > > > > > Peter. > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original message ----- > > > > > > > > > > > > On Tue, 2013-06-11 at 08:23, Peter wrote: > > > > > > > I've been thinking about how Entry objects are immutable in > > > > > > > serialized form and of course how they are not in unserialized > > > > > > > form. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Should Entry fields be final by default? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > No. Javaspaces usage is frequently to take an entry, modify it and > > > > > > then put it back into the space. > > > > > > > > > > > > Greg. > > > > > > > > > > > > > The JMM makes an exception for Serialization, allowing final > > > > > > > fields > > > > > > > to be frozen after construction during deserialization, provided > > > > > > > it > > > > > > > occurs before sharing with other threads. It would allow Entry's > > > > > > > to > > > > > > > be shared safely among threads, as long as their public fields > > > > > > > aren't mutable, eg: an array. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Peter. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
