research-article

Transactional memory for smalltalk

Authors:

Oscar NierstraszAuthors Info & Claims

ICDL '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international conference on Dynamic languages: in conjunction with the 15th International Smalltalk Joint Conference 2007

Pages 207 - 221

https://doi.org/10.1145/1352678.1352692

Published: 25 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Concurrency control in Smalltalk is based on locks and is therefore notoriously difficult to use. Even though some implementations provide high-level constructs, these add complexity and potentially hard-to-detect bugs to the application. Transactional memory is an attractive mechanism that does not have the drawbacks of locks, however the underlying implementation is often difficult to integrate into an existing language. In this paper we show how we have introduced transactional semantics in Smalltalk by using the reflective facilities of the language. Our approach is based on method annotations, incremental parse tree transformations and an optimistic commit protocol. We report on a practical case study, benchmarks and further and on-going work.

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Cited By

Harris TLarus JRajwar R(2022)Transactional MemoryundefinedOnline publication date: 5-Mar-2022
Marr SD'Hondt T(2012)Identifying a unifying mechanism for the implementation of concurrency abstractions on multi-language virtual machinesProceedings of the 50th international conference on Objects, Models, Components, Patterns10.1007/978-3-642-30561-0_13(171-186)Online publication date: 29-May-2012
Renggli LNierstrasz O(2009)Transactional memory in a dynamic languageComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2008.06.00135:1(21-30)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2009
Show More Cited By

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cover image ACM Other conferences

ICDL '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international conference on Dynamic languages: in conjunction with the 15th International Smalltalk Joint Conference 2007

August 2007

254 pages

ISBN:9781605580845

DOI:10.1145/1352678

Conference Chairs:
Serge Demeyer
University of Antwerp
,
Jean-François Perrot
Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris

Copyright © 2007 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 25 August 2007

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Swiss National Science Foundation

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ICDL '07

ICDL '07: Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Dynamic Languages

August 25 - 31, 2007

Lugano, Switzerland

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ICDL '07 Paper Acceptance Rate 11 of 16 submissions, 69%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 11 of 16 submissions, 69%

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Cited By

Harris TLarus JRajwar R(2022)Transactional MemoryundefinedOnline publication date: 5-Mar-2022
Marr SD'Hondt T(2012)Identifying a unifying mechanism for the implementation of concurrency abstractions on multi-language virtual machinesProceedings of the 50th international conference on Objects, Models, Components, Patterns10.1007/978-3-642-30561-0_13(171-186)Online publication date: 29-May-2012
Renggli LNierstrasz O(2009)Transactional memory in a dynamic languageComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2008.06.00135:1(21-30)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2009
Nierstrasz ODenker MGîrba TLienhard ARöthlisberger D(2008)Change-Enabled Software SystemsSoftware-Intensive Systems and New Computing Paradigms10.1007/978-3-540-89437-7_3(64-79)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2008

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