Hacker News Reader

what? You need to describe what you’re saying better. How is an ID allocated a comment a “race condition”. A race condition desirable or not has to be related to some sequence of events.. ie its a race with a particular set of outcomes. What you’re describing sounds like basic cause and effect.

View on HN

Event A is your comment. Event B is my comment. If your comment gets to the server first if gets ID 1. If mine gets to the server first it gets ID 1. Which ID you get depends on timing outside your control. They race to get the ID. A race condition.

So what? What’s missing is that unless something depends on the ordering of those ids, it really isn’t a race condition. Just plain happening of events is the inevitable passage of time, not a race condition. What is interesting about what happens downstream with those IDs?

You’re not wrong that not all race conditions are harmful, but i feel you’re doing a pretty bad job of explaining what a race condition is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com