advanced · ordering
What "Atomic" Actually Guarantees
What does it mean for an operation to be atomic, and what does that not give you?
Practical scenario
A code review has a check-then-act on an atomic counter: read it, compare it to a limit, then increment. The author argues it is safe because the counter is atomic.
What it tests
- • Precision about indivisibility versus ordering
- • Whether the candidate knows two atomics are not jointly atomic
- • Awareness that atomicity is a language-level and hardware-level concept