Structured Deferral: Synchronization via Procrastination:
We simply do not have a synchronization mechanism that can enforce mutual exclusion.
Developers often take a proactive approach to software design, especially those from cultures valuing industriousness over procrastination. Lazy approaches, however, have proven their value, with examples including reference counting, garbage collection, and lazy evaluation. This structured deferral takes the form of synchronization via procrastination, specifically reference counting, hazard pointers, and RCU (read-copy-update).
Proving the Correctness of Nonblocking Data Structures:
So you’ve decided to use a nonblocking data structure, and now you need to be certain of its correctness. How can this be achieved?
Nonblocking synchronization can yield astonishing results in terms of scalability and realtime response, but at the expense of verification state space.
Nonblocking Algorithms and Scalable Multicore Programming:
Exploring some alternatives to lock-based synchronization
Real-world systems with complicated quality-of-service guarantees may require a delicate balance between throughput and latency to meet operating requirements in a cost-efficient manner. The increasing availability and decreasing cost of commodity multicore and many-core systems make concurrency and parallelism increasingly necessary for meeting demanding performance requirements. Unfortunately, the design and implementation of correct, efficient, and scalable concurrent software is often a daunting task.