[M3devel] Downsides of Modula-3 ?

[Mika Nystrom]

"Daniel Alejandro Benavides D." writes:
>Hi all:
>Have you read this, if the answer is not, maybe you should, because it seem=
>s, this person knows that from the beginning there were problems in the lan=
>guage specification in thread semantics.
>https://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch/msg/880a211df40506ab?hl=3Den
>
>Rodney (and Mika), please make sure your code (implementation) is OK with s=
>tandard semantics likewise I will do try to accept the Modula-3 semantics o=
>f threads are OK, hum, this could be fun, but, very hard, even Larch/Modula=
>-3 might not be able to correct every error on it (so then I might say that=
> is correct and safe, but anything SAFE). Of course there will always room =
>running in circles but still is better to check if something else can be do=
>ne properly, I mean, that you can't be safe-threaded for %100, can you? Tha=
>t's maybe why they drop the word SAFE for Modula-3 and that's good, they ar=
>e honest.
>Thanks in advance

I think the early specs of the Modula-3 threads were a bit loose, yes.
I am pretty sure this was corrected for the formal verification.  You can
read about this in the Green Book, too.

It is interesting that the author of the thread to which you refer essentially
claims that C doesn't guarantee what one might think it claims.  This would suggest
that there may be things one shouldn't assume about pthreads.

My Modula-3 code (in the thread tester program) is really nothing special.
Please review it yourself and let me know if you find any issues.
It's not particularly complicated...

    Mika