Talk:Race hazard

Apart from the whole race condition/hazard issue, this article is just plain awful. The section on asynchronous FSMs has no context, the article as a whole is full of technical jargon, the writing is terrible, and only the first sentence or two seems to actually be about explaining race conditions (as opposed to giving technical examples of them). (The above unsigned comment was made by 130.15.82.217)


 * WP:BB Graham 02:02, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

multiple terms
Agreed, this should be race condition, who's ever heard of race hazard?

Needs to be merged with race condition, which already exists. -- Khym Chanur 06:08, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

Grrrr... I wish people would use the standard terms for things. Graham 06:09, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this rather be at race condition? That term seems much more ubiquitous - I never heard of race hazard until I followed a link to race condition. Furthermore, "race condition" gives 161,000 google hits, "race hazard" only 454. - Kevin Saff 15:14, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe it's a UK thing, but I only ever learned this as race hazard, though obviously I understand race condition to be the same thing. To my mind the term "hazard" is somewhat more descriptive, since such things are usually most definitely hazardous! A race condition sound much more benign, which it isn't. I do agree that there shouldn't be two articles though, so in the end it doesn't matter what we call it as long as both terms eventually end up on the same page. Graham 23:24, 12 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Hazard does (or did) have a specific technical meaning. The term may have been introduced by David Huffman (from the eponymous code). I have a reference: Huffman, D. A., "The Design and Use of Hazard-Free Switching Networks", Journal of the Assoc. for Comp. Machinery, 4, 1, pp. 47-62 (January 1957). I do not have time right now to do the full research, but I think the encyclopedia terms are confusing. I seem to remember important distinctions between static and dynamic hazards, for instance. I hope this helps. AJim 19:06, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

file locking example
isn't the comparison between file locking and "a more cumbersome remedy" meaningless as stated? seems to me that the description of the more cumbersome remedy applies across the board to file locking. locking strategies give exclusive access to the the lock manager, which then assigns and allows to requests "negotiated" locks or access, based on object properties and timing. what's the difference? not saying it couldn't be a valid point, but i don't see that the article outlines anything but a difference in what similar methods are called arbitrarily. SaltyPig 05:02, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

too much jargon
this page uses a whole lot of programmer jargon---which is fine generally, but makes it useless for non-programmers trying to find information. there should be an explanation at the top for "laymen", and then it can go into the detailed explanations for people who want, and will understand, the language. This is especially important when we're getting links from Wired and such. --- Juicy 03:58, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

IRC collisions?
IRC has had countermeasures for nick/channel/mode/etc. collisions since, blah, I think I came back to EFNet in '99 or so, give or take. How freaking old is this article? :P --Jack (Cuervo) 09:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Race "hazard"?
Agreed, I know of no one that uses the term "race hazard", it's "race condition". If anything, the main page should be Race Condition which is linked to by Race Hazard. --Peter Ritchie 15:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC) Maybe "Race Hazard" is an electronics term and both "Race Hazard" and "Race Condition" should have their own pages that link to each other? --Peter Ritchie 16:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

fixed, finally! Benwing 01:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, now it's duplicated. I suspect Peter Ritchie's right and "race hazard" is an electronics term. So "race condition" should get the electronics stuff stripped out (and replaced with a link to "race hazard") and vice versa. Slamb 02:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Bah. I started to do this - I pulled a lot of electronics stuff from "race condition" and was about to do the opposite to "race hazard" when I noticed you'd made it redirect to "race condition". I was confused by the distinct talk pages, I think. And..."race hazard" google search shows almost nothing, so screw it, I'm reverting my change. Slamb 02:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Race conditions in hardware and software are essentially the same thing. There's no need for there to be two separate pages. The discussion of hardware is also relevant to simulated hardware, such as ladder logic programs. --DavidHopwood 23:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)