Atomics docs should reference the C++11 standard instead of a GCC wiki page.

[mahkoh]

cc @steveklabnik

[steveklabnik]

Why?

[tomjakubowski]

Some reasons include:

• The GCC wiki's content is transient and totally out of our control. Somebody could update the wiki with wrong information and mislead Rust documentation readers.
• The text of the C++11 standard is guaranteed to have a correct description of C++11 atomics, by definition.
• The pertinent sections of the standard can probably be quoted directly in our docs under fair use.

[petrochenkov]

Why 11 and not 14? With 14 our quotes will contain the latest editorial changes! :D

[steveklabnik]

Are either of those standards the definitive documentation for what we are doing? I'm not opposed to this, just trying to gain some more context here.

[tomjakubowski]

I believe so. Rust uses LLVM's atomic intrinsic functions which correspond directly to C++11's atomic operations. See the LLVM language reference and a more informal description.

If these descriptions aren’t precise enough, check [the Java and C++11] specs (see spec references in the atomics guide).

[mahkoh]

Why?

The GCC wiki is incomplete. I read it and then ten other websites that tried to provide an informal explanation of C++11 atomic operations before I looked at the standard itself and found a whole paragraph dedicated to my question.