[Caml-list] recursive mutexes in ocaml

[Chet Murthy <murthy.chet@gmail.com>]

Recently I'm writing some multi-threaded code, and ended up wishing I
had recursive mutexes.  Now .... I realize that this is a simple thing
to "get" -- just hack the code, maaaan.  But before (or, erm
.... whilst) I do that, I figured I'd ask -why- ocaml's mutexes aren't
recursive.  Or at least, why there isn't an option for recursive
mutexes?

I realize that at some level, you can -always- eschew recursive
mutexes by passing along extra parameters so that code can know
whether it's locked a particular mutex.  That said, it's (more than) a
bit of a pain, and surely complicates code ....

Is there some other -reason- that recursive mutexes aren't
implemented?  Or is it just a matter of taste?

Thanks,
--chet--

P.S. I found Markus' email about this:

>> I'd consider recursive lock acquisitions bad practice. There has
   never been a case in numerous complex bindings where I would have
   needed this feature. In mission-critical code I even prefer
   error-checking mutexes that prevent me from acquiring locks twice
   or releasing them once too often. As with everything multithreaded:
   the simpler the better. It's hard enough to reason about the simple
   case.

and this is about the ocaml master lock.  But it's the only instance I
find of somebody discussing recursive mutexes in ocaml.