RFR (L, but tedious) 8188220: Remove Atomic::*_ptr() uses and overloads from hotspot

[David Holmes]

On 11/10/2017 1:43 PM, Kim Barrett wrote:
>> On Oct 10, 2017, at 6:01 PM, coleen.phillimore at oracle.com wrote:
>>
>> Summary: With the new template functions these are unnecessary.
>>
>> 2. renamed Atomic::replace_if_null to Atomic::cmpxchg_if_null.  I disliked the first name because it's not explicit from the callers that there's an underlying cas.  If people want to fight, I'll remove the function and use cmpxchg because there are only a couple places where this is a little nicer.
> 
> I'm still looking at other parts, but I want to respond to this now.
> 
> I object to this change.  I think the proposed new name is confusing,
> suggesting there are two different comparisons involved.
> 
> I originally called it something else that I wasn't entirely happy
> with.  When David suggested replace_if_null I quickly adopted that as
> I think that name exactly describes what it does.  In particular, I
> think "atomic replace if" pretty clearly suggests a test-and-set /
> compare-and-swap type of operation.

I totally agree. It's an Atomic operation, the implementation will 
involve something atomic, it doesn't matter if it is cmpxchg or 
something else. The name replace_if_null describes exactly what the 
function does - it doesn't have to describe how it does it.

David
-----

> Further, I think any name involving "cmpxchg" is problematic because
> the result of this operation is intentionally different from cmpxchg,
> in order to better support the primary use-case, which is lazy
> initialization.
> 
> I also object to your alternative suggestion of removing the operation
> entirely and just using cmpxchg directly instead.  I don't recall how
> many occurrences there presently are, but I suspect more could easily
> be added; it's part of a lazy initialization pattern similar to DCLP
> but without the locks.
>