If you want different threads to see the same data structure then I think you would also need a mechanism to prevent multiple threads modifying the same node and clobbering each other's changes.
Yes, of course. But there is a difference between read, which only requires synchronization at the root node, and write, which requires synchronization at the modified leaf and potentially all the way back up the path from leaf to root.
warmfuzzykitten|12 years ago