For certain uses, however, it's safe to not lock before the read *on Intel architectures*. This can go out the window on SPARC or PPC, or any architecture where there is no guarantee that there won't be speculative execution or out-of-order execution without explicit synchronization.
Even on Intel architectures, the compiler can and will reorder operations. Hardware-level issues are only a part of the story.
I followed the Java Memory Model mailing lists for a while. A lot of very bright, very experienced people thought they had found ways to avoid locking and were wrong.
This stuff is hard. Do NOT underestimate it.
Tim
_______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
