Common Pitfalls in Writing Lock-Free Algorithms

Re:Common Pitfalls in Writing Lock-Free Algorithms by taeric on Friday March 29, 2013 @09:34AM (#5460600)

That is what I meant. And having a garbage collector run could potentially freeze the JVM, causing a performance hit. (I mean, it is basically a global lock on the entire system, right?)

Basically, my reading of "safe" meant "would not block." A garbage collection cycle stops everything, so is effectively a block, right?

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Re:Common Pitfalls in Writing Lock-Free Algorithms by swift on Friday March 29, 2013 @04:56PM (#5463001)

I read "safe" differently than you did; now I'm on the same page. With or without a GC, if you want to guarantee safety in that sense no matter what, you're right - you just can't allocate memory. So in the worst case running in a managed environment doesn't buy you much, but often the guarantees you need are a bit looser than that, and in that case managed memory can be really beneficial.

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