[fashion-at-cost]

In this context, ”happens before” is not a wall-clock colloquialism but in fact a term of art that is specifically described as:

> The happens before relation is defined as the transitive closure of the union of the sequenced before and synchronized before relations.

Without synchronization, the degenerate sequencing is perfectly valid.

That’s the problem with being “clever” - you miss a definition and your entire mental model is busted.

[nebulous1]

So, in the situation in the comment OP, with sychronized writes and and unsynchronized reads, what is this "happens before" stipulation prohibiting?

[fashion-at-cost]

A single reader thread cannot read a value written by a write, then later read a value written by a write that happens before the first write.

[nebulous1]

Thanks!