[Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] SharedQueue does scale (was: Re: SharedQueue doesn't scale)

Levente Uzonyi leves at elte.hu
Mon Oct 18 23:06:19 UTC 2010


On Mon, 18 Oct 2010, Igor Stasenko wrote:

snip

>

Thanks, Levente for giving a feedback.
Please, feel free to shape my classes in more complete from (such as
proper naming),
to make them ready for inclusion in both Squeak's and Pharo cores.
I propose the following names:
AtomicQueue (base class) -> AtomicCollection
FIFOQueue -> AtomicQueue
LIFOQueue -> AtomicStack
If you, or anyone else having better suggestions, speak now :)



I think these should be the names:

FIFOQueue -> SharedQueue
LIFOQueue -> SharedStack

I don't know a really good name for AtomicQueue, maybe SharedList, 
SharedCollection or SharedListStub.


Levente



In any case, i'm am open to discuss further details and possible
caveats of using new classes
to anyone interested in using them.

P.S. As a side note, i now can explain (to myself at first place), why
i intuitively choosed to used atomic swap
instead of CAS.
Because it fits better fits with smalltalk language semantics:

A swap operation in smalltalk implemented as two assignments:
x := y. y := z.
An assignments is basic operation, which have nothing to do with
late-bound nature of language.
Unless we going to introduce a meta-object protocol(s), which could
turn a simple assignment
into some message sends under the hood, it will remain a basic,
early-bound operation.
And even if we do, it is highly unlikely, that even then we will throw
away the old,
simple assignment, which identifies an assignment source & target at
compile time.

In contrast, a CAS operation , if written in smalltalk looks like:

(a == b ) ifTrue: [ a := c ]

so, it having two message sends (#== , #ifTrue:), and from strict,
pure language perspective,
this using a late-bound semantics (a message sends),
and as any message send, the message result and behavior cannot be
predicted at compile time
and therefore its wrong to assume that such statement could be an
atomic operation.

Unless, of course, we introduce a new language syntax which will
denote a CAS operation explicitly.

>
> Levente
>
>
> snip
>


-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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