Re: Lockless, atomic FIFO/LIFO queues

[Alexander Nasonov <alnsn%yandex.ru@localhost>]

Lloyd Parkes wrote:
> Hi all,
> While I have no intention of doing any of these subprojects (I have
> far too many other things to distract me), I am still interested in
> the lockless subprojects because I have studied with and occasionally
> drink with someone who does research in this area.

I'm interested as well.

> I have noticed that the first subproject calls for a data structure
> that is both a LIFO and a FIFO. How closely are people wedded to this
> combination. The reason I ask is that lock-free algorithms tend to be
> hard, and efficient lock-free algorithms seem to be even harder. It is
> quite possible that implementing a correct and efficient queue is only
> feasible if we have separate implementations for LIFO and FIFO.

Interface can be shared if you don't mix LIFO and FIFO operations at
runtime. But I think that interfaces should be separate. They can share
an implementation, though.

I'm curious how to deal with ABA problem. One possible solution is
implementing a special memory management. I know nothing about it,
though. It might be too slow for a general (non lock-free) code.

Alex