On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 2:33 PM Jens Maurer via SG5 <sg5_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

> On 21/10/2020 03.16, Hans Boehm via SG5 wrote:
> > Mike Spear: What can you actually do with the p2066 proposal?
> >
> > Michael Scott: implement lock-free data structures like linked lists
> that read without a lock, and then transactionally update it at the right
> place.
> >
> > Mike Spear: No, because the initial reads can't be on atomic data.
> >
> > Can't really use these transactions as an NCAS replacement. All read
> accesses preceding NCAS would also have to be transactional, which is too
> expensive for something like Intel HTM. Transactions cost as much as locks,
> so surrounding every read by one is not practical.
> >
> > Victor L.: Transactional reads could work for tree traversal followed by
> update, which is probably more common.
> >
> > Clarification that this avoids contention in an HTM context, but still
> has latency issues even in the uncontended case.
> >
> > Discussion of double-checked locking, with a similar conclusion. It's
> not practical to put the initial read in a transaction.
> >
> > We unfortunately concluded that we either need more of a usability
> argument for what we have, or probably a revision of both the design and
> wording documents to allow new + caught exceptions. If we had the latter,
> most of the STL data structures could become usable in transactions. Given
> that roll-your-own data structures don't seem terribly viable, that would
> give us a much better usability argument.
>
>
Hi Jens,

The fact that even reads need to be inside a transaction to avoid data
> races with updates was part of the SG5 TM design since the beginning,
> so I'm slightly baffled to see this surface as a "back to square one"
> surprise.
>
>
I think this is only saying "using HTM to implement MCAS will be much
faster if the compiler can optimize single-location transactions", not "we
want strong isolation between atomic blocks and unsynchronized accesses to
data".


> Why would the ability to use STL data structures in a transaction
> help this case in any way?
>

I think the two points are not linked, and Hans was just summarizing the
different threads of conversation. There was a vigorous discussion of both
topics, but as far as I remember, the topics are not linked.

- Mike


>
> Jens
>
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