[concurrency-interest] Spin Loop Hint support: Draft JEP proposal

[Doug Lea]

On 10/08/2015 07:01 AM, David M. Lloyd wrote:
> On 10/08/2015 05:58 AM, Doug Lea wrote:
>
>> class Thread { //
>>    /**
>>     * A hint to the platform that the current thread is momentarily
>>     * unable to progress. ... add more guidance ...
>>     */
>>    void spinYield();

should be:
       public static void spinYield();

>> }
>>
>> In principle, this would also allow the implementation to do an actual
>> yield on uniprocessors or when the load average is high. Probably not
>> in initial implementation though.
>>
>> Adding a method to class Thread risks name clashes with existing
>> methods introduced in subclasses. So this might need a clunkier name
>> to effectively eliminate the possibility.
>
> If the method is static, then the impact of a clashing name should be fairly
> minimal.
>

Right. For statics, pretty much the only concern is whether
reflective mechanics (Class.getMethod etc) return unexpected
entries that would break existing code. The name "spinYield"
seems unlikely enough to be a problem though.

-Doug