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> It was impossible to make singleton in C++ in 200x but atomics was described in literature (even in SICP) and only when patent expired Intel made it everyday
by h0l0cube 5y ago
> It was impossible to make singleton in C++ in 200x but atomics was described in literature (even in SICP) and only when patent expired Intel made it everyday tool
I'm curious about what you mean here. Are you taking about an atomic compare and swap operation? I'm sure these have been implemented in processors back as far as the 90s, if not earlier.
- Woodi 5y agoYep, atomics was implemented earlier but, as far as I know, they was patented and only after patent expired Intel put them in. So, how many years it take to "popularize" atomics ? Ten, 20 years ?
- h0l0cube 5y agoI suppose multi-threading wasn't a huge problem for most applications. But I'm not sure how a mutex could ever be properly implemented in a multithreaded environment without an atomic compare and swap, but they've certainly been a thing for a very long time. In terms of atomics as a assembler intrinsic, I think that only became popular when intrinsics started being supported in C compilers, but I doubt the patent was holding that back - unless you know different?