RE: possible spinlock optimizations

Bret Indrelee (breti@bit3.com)
Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:41:51 -0500


Since spinlocks are only supposed to be held for a VERY short time, are you
sure that allowing the CPU to do something else will speed things up?

Allowing an interrupt in can amount to a fairly serious delay in aquiring
the spinlock. You cause the slow path to become even slower by enabling
interrupts.

It seems to me that if the spinlock is held that long, it would have been
better to have used a semaphore for the mutual exclusion instead.

-Bret

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