Is concurrency hard?

[Mats Cronqvist]

Robert Raschke wrote:
> Mats wrote:
> 
>>   i believe the only reason concurrency is percieved as hard is cultural; 
>>programmers are trained to think sequentially. this in turn is because C++ is 
>>glorified C, C is glorified assembly, and assembly is sequential because CPU's are.
>>   so no, concurrency isn't hard. what's hard is to unlearn the habit of turning 
>>everything into a sequential problem.
> 
> 
> Umm, try telling "CPU's are sequential" to the people who design and
> make them.  I'm sure they'll disagree quite violently.

   maybe i should have said "CPU's were sequential" (at the time C/FORTAN was 
designed). at least i don't remember having to deal with concurrency when i 
programmed 6800's. otoh, i don't see how it matters what the CPU actually does 
as long as it seems sequential to the programmer.
   the arrival of multi-core CPU's will of course change all that.

[...]
> I believe that concurrent programming is hard to most people, because
> of the poor abstractions used by most programmers, i.e., state, lots
> of it.

   how's that?

   mats