Shared memory¶
A memory region or address-space resource that multiple execution agents can access for communication or coordinated computation.
Core Idea¶
Shared memory may be hardware-coherent memory, an interprocess mapping or a programming model; correctness depends on visibility, atomicity, ordering, synchronization, ownership and protection rather than physical sharing alone. Agents read and write a common set of locations; a memory-consistency model constrains when operations become visible, and synchronization establishes ordering and mutual-exclusion relations needed to interpret state. The abstraction is therefore identified by a declared carrier, a transformation or constraint over that carrier, and an invariant that tells an analyst whether the named structure is genuinely present.
Scope of Application¶
Shared memory belongs to concurrent and parallel computing and is useful where the analyst can specify the typed concurrent and parallel computing carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, then evaluate the processes, threads or devices, physical and virtual region, mapping and permissions, data layout, consistency and coherence model, atomic operations, synchronization, ownership, lifetime, cache effects, failure recovery, and security boundary are explicit. The scope is broad within that domain but bounded by the need for the processes, threads or devices, physical and virtual region, mapping and permissions, data layout, consistency and coherence model, atomic operations, synchronization, ownership, lifetime, cache effects, failure recovery, and security boundary are explicit.
Clarity¶
The abstraction clarifies a crowded vocabulary by making the processes, threads or devices, physical and virtual region, mapping and permissions, data layout, consistency and coherence model, atomic operations, synchronization, ownership, lifetime, cache effects, failure recovery, and security boundary are explicit the center of the account. A claim should name the carrier, the governing operation or relation, the applicable assumptions, and the recognition test.
Manages Complexity¶
Without the abstraction, an analyst must reason directly over many local details: the carrier roles, admissibility assumptions, competing conventions, derived invariants, boundary cases, and proof or validation obligations specific to Shared memory. Shared memory compresses them into the roles in the structural signature. That compression permits comparison across instances without erasing the variables that determine validity. It also exposes which details may be varied safely and which are constitutive.
Abstract Reasoning¶
- Identify the carrier. State what the elements, states, objects, or observations are: the typed concurrent and parallel computing carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets. Reject examples whose alleged carrier belongs to a different problem. 2. Lock the constitutive rule. Express the processes, threads or devices, physical and virtual region, mapping and permissions, data layout, consistency and coherence model, atomic operations, synchronization, ownership, lifetime, cache effects, failure recovery, and security boundary are explicit independently of one notation or implementation.
Knowledge Transfer¶
Knowledge transfers strongly among subfields of concurrent and parallel computing because they reuse the typed concurrent and parallel computing carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, Agents read and write a common set of locations; a memory-consistency model constrains when operations become visible, and synchronization establishes ordering and mutual-exclusion relations needed to interpret state., and type the carrier, state every parameter and convention in the definition, test that the processes, threads or devices, physical and virtual region, mapping and permissions, data layout, consistency and coherence model, atomic operations, synchronization, ownership, lifetime, cache effects, failure recovery, and security boundary are explicit, compare the nearest accepted identity, and report counterexamples, uncertainty, and limiting cases.
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Shared memory Domain-specific
Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on
-
Shared memory is a kind of Concurrency Prime
The proposed strict upward parent is
prime:concurrency.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Shared memory → Concurrency
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Shared memory sits in a crowded region of the domain-specific corpus (3rd percentile for distinctiveness): several abstractions share nearly its structure, so a description that fits it tends to fit its neighbors too.
Family — Memory Architecture & Parallel Computing (34 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Parallel RAM — 0.95
- Data dependency — 0.94
- Parallel algorithm — 0.93
- Dining philosophers problem — 0.93
- Non-uniform memory access — 0.93
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-09-08