%0 Conference Paper %1 7321187 %A Wu, Di %A Chen, Lin %A Zhou, Yuming %A Xu, Baowen %B 2015 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM) %D 2015 %K Bugs C++ Concurrency Constructs Emperical Survey %P 1-10 %R 10.1109/ESEM.2015.7321187 %T An Empirical Study on C++ Concurrency Constructs %U http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7321187/ %X Nowadays concurrent programming is in large demand. The inherent support for concurrency is therefore increasingly important in programming languages. As for C++, an abundance of standard concurrency constructs have been supported since C++11. However, to date there is little work investigating how these constructs are actually used in developing real software. In this paper, we perform an empirical study to investigate the adoption of C++ concurrency constructs in open-source applications, with the goal to provide insightful information for practitioners to use concurrency constructs efficiently. To this end, we analyze 127 open-source applications that adopt C++ concurrency constructs, comprising 34 million lines of C++ code, to conduct the experiment. The experimental results show that: (1) to implement concurrency code, thread-based constructs are significantly more often used than atomics-based constructs and task-based constructs; (2) to manage synchronization, lock-based constructs are significantly more often used than lock-free constructs and blocking constructs; (3) among the key thread-based constructs and task-based constructs (i.e. mutex, promise, and future), there is not a construct significantly more commonly misused than others; (4) small-size applications introduce concurrency constructs more intensively and more quickly than medium-size applications and large-size applications; and (5) an increasing use of standard concurrency constructs does not result in a substantially decreasing use of unstandardized concurrency constructs. Based on these findings, we make actionable suggestions for language designers, developers, and novices to assist them in designing and using C++ concurrency constructs.

@inproceedings{7321187, abstract = {Nowadays concurrent programming is in large demand. The inherent support for concurrency is therefore increasingly important in programming languages. As for C++, an abundance of standard concurrency constructs have been supported since C++11. However, to date there is little work investigating how these constructs are actually used in developing real software. In this paper, we perform an empirical study to investigate the adoption of C++ concurrency constructs in open-source applications, with the goal to provide insightful information for practitioners to use concurrency constructs efficiently. To this end, we analyze 127 open-source applications that adopt C++ concurrency constructs, comprising 34 million lines of C++ code, to conduct the experiment. The experimental results show that: (1) to implement concurrency code, thread-based constructs are significantly more often used than atomics-based constructs and task-based constructs; (2) to manage synchronization, lock-based constructs are significantly more often used than lock-free constructs and blocking constructs; (3) among the key thread-based constructs and task-based constructs (i.e. mutex, promise, and future), there is not a construct significantly more commonly misused than others; (4) small-size applications introduce concurrency constructs more intensively and more quickly than medium-size applications and large-size applications; and (5) an increasing use of standard concurrency constructs does not result in a substantially decreasing use of unstandardized concurrency constructs. Based on these findings, we make actionable suggestions for language designers, developers, and novices to assist them in designing and using C++ concurrency constructs.}, added-at = {2018-01-11T15:25:07.000+0100}, author = {Wu, Di and Chen, Lin and Zhou, Yuming and Xu, Baowen}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/22331fc0b8ac08c4297ecf9a3c0021ad7/gron}, booktitle = {2015 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)}, description = {An Empirical Study on C++ Concurrency Constructs - IEEE Conference Publication}, doi = {10.1109/ESEM.2015.7321187}, interhash = {b808026419ca3c05e0649c0369f7d0dd}, intrahash = {2331fc0b8ac08c4297ecf9a3c0021ad7}, issn = {1949-3770}, keywords = {Bugs C++ Concurrency Constructs Emperical Survey}, month = oct, pages = {1-10}, timestamp = {2018-01-11T15:25:07.000+0100}, title = {{An Empirical Study on C++ Concurrency Constructs}}, url = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7321187/}, year = 2015 }