It's certainly possible to have that control via assembler, where folks are programming in that. So strictly speaking, yes, your "may" can be true. For C or a

It's certainly possible to have that control via assembler, where folks are programming in that. So strictly speaking, yes, your "may" can be true. For C or another language, here's some related reading on that topic, and where you can get into deep trouble with this: http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/misc_slides/pldi05_threads.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/misc_slides/pldi05... http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/misc_slides/reordering.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/misc_slides/reorde... http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2005/HPL-2005-217R1.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2005/HPL-2005-217R1.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2004/HPL-2004-209.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2004/HPL-2004-209.pdf