Re: Very interesting paper about future programming models

Ruby
1

Benjohn B. wrote:

Having not even read the piece…

I was following up on Software Transactional Memory from an earlier
Ruby T. posting, and that looks extremely promising.

Have you read this thread on Software Transactional Memory?

It’s about the downsides of STM.

Regards,

Michael

2

It’s about the downsides of STM.

Fantastic! :slight_smile: I’d like something to temper my enthusiasm.

3

Have you read this thread on Software Transactional Memory?

Making it stick.: Misguided: The Road Not To Be Travelled

Well, I’ve had a browse, and it mostly seems to be a rant on the style
of, ‘I don’t like it, it sounds dangerous, ooooo, it’s horrible, look at
it! These other people don’t like it either!’, without (that I’ve found
yet) a clear statement of why.

The main objection seems to be that software will end up being a mess of
shared state that many process are franstically writing too, but that
just seems like really bad design to me. Asynchronus message queues, it
suggests, are a better option.

I get the feel that there is a “holy war” between a functional approach,
and an imperitive approach here, somewhere. I’ll need to read it more
closely, because that sounds interesting. I don’t yet see why STM
shouldn’t be highly functional though (I personally like functional a
lot).

Cheers,
Benjohn