[concurrency-interest] Is it still ok to use synchronized after all these years?

[Tim Peierls]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Ashwin Jayaprakash <
ashwin.jayaprakash at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was wondering if it is still ok to use the "synchronized" keyword instead
> of ReentrantLock where it is convenient.
>

The main reason to use Lock is for these capabilities:

   - Non-nested locking
   - Lock.newCondition
   - Lock.tryLock (timed/untimed)
   - Lock.lockInterruptibly

If you don't need any of these, go ahead and use 'synchronized'.



> Or is it thought of as an anachronism?
>

Nope. It's much easier to read, and there's no danger of forgetting to
release the lock.



> Does synchronized still have a better internal implementation over
> j.u.c.Lock as this old blog entry says -
> http://blogs.sun.com/dave/entry/java_util_concurrent_reentrantlock_vs ?
>

The scales have shifted back and forth, but it's not something to worry
about at this point.


PS: Doug Lea - if you are reading this, I hope you will continue to make
> your awesome contributions to the JDK! I can't imagine what it would be like
> without the j.u.c code.
>

I'm sure Doug _is_ reading this!

--tim
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