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From: edler@cmcl2.UUCP (Jan Edler)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Orthogonal addressing doesn't help multis.
Message-ID: <807@cmcl2.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 14:36:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmcl2.807
Posted: Mon Jul  8 14:36:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 00:23:32 EDT
References: <419@oakhill.UUCP> <6415@boring.UUCP>
Reply-To: edler@cmcl2.UUCP (Jan Edler)
Organization: New York University
Lines: 18
Summary: Unless you use a parallel programming language

In article <2693@cornell.UUCP> jqj@gvax.UUCP (J Q Johnson) writes:
>In article <482@cmcl2.UUCP> edler@cmcl2.UUCP (Jan Edler) writes:
>>...The programmer would not generally
>>know when the "atomic" instructions would be used, and when the compiler
>>might optomize them away, so he/she wouldn't be able to depend on them.
>...
>Presumably such instructions would be generated by
>corresponding high-level constructs in your favorite concurrent programming
>language (e.g. all operations on variables declared as semaphores use
>the atomic instructions)....

Correct.  I have gotten too used to doing parallel programming with
serial programming languages.  On the other hand, concurrent programming
languages are not yet commonly used for OS implementation, especially
in the uniprocessor world.

	Jan Edler			cmcl2!edler
	New York University		edler@nyu.arpa