Hi,

RichardC (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on May 16, 2013 6:57 am wrote:
> Brendan (btrotter.delete@this.gmail.com) on May 16, 2013 12:29 am wrote:
>
> > Is it reasonable to expect competent developers to be able to handle that extra complexity when
> > it's beneficial? I guess this depends on how you define "competent". I'd say "it's definitely
> > reasonable" (it's not the 20th century anymore) but other people may have lower standards.
>
> See this paper http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-1.pdf
>
> Key quote from the conclusion: "non-trivial multi-threaded programs are incomprehensible
> to humans".

Here's another quote: "An early objective was to permit modification of concurrent programs via a graphical user interface while those concurrent programs were executing."

I'd be shocked if anyone thought this would be a "risk free" endeavour from the outset. The fact that it actually worked with only one deadlock in 4 years is amazing and shows that even academics can get an extremely convoluted example of threading 99% right.

- Brendan