[bknr-devel] bknr.indices, the slot NIL is missing from the object

[Hans Hübner]

Hi Klaus,

well, so what you seem to write is that your application is
architected around a generic function that serializes mutations, and
that not having BKNR transactions support generic functions prevented
you from just using them rather than implementing your own lock.  Fair
enough.  I wonder why you can't use multiple generic functions instead
of one, but that is beyond what I can (and want to) understand right
now.

I am not a big fan of fine grained locking, but that is apparent from
the store architecture with its giant lock, too.  I am not bothered
with the scalability limitations as I have not yet found them to be
practically relevant - My user base has been growing slower than
processor speeds have increased, and even with Pentium III CPUs we had
more than enough headroom for our applications.

STM is interesting, but real transactional memory interests me more, I
must admit.  There is an implementation of CLOS STM
(http://common-lisp.net/project/cl-stm/), but the lack of support for
non-CLOS data types is kind of a show-stopper for me.  Maybe someone
will hack STM into one of the CL compilers, but I'm not really
prepared to do that.

Anyway - If you need further support with BKNR indices, let us know.

-Hans