Comment by sarchertech
3 years ago
Unless you can guarantee that the processing time of each job is exactly the same, if you have multiple workers processing the same queue, you can’t order anything except the start time.
You can use locks to effectively break the queue into sub queues so that each sub queue is only being processed by 1 worker. Then you can order that sub queue.
job should be attempted inthe same order/priority they are enqueued, that's the meaning of the word "queue". That they take varrying amounts of time is another matter.
Queue can clearly mean "work that needs to be completed" not necessarily 'work completed in order'. Your definition is much stricter than it needs to be for most use cases.
There is clearly a conceptual difference between a set of things from which you pull things out randomly, and a queue. A queue always has intrinsic criteria to select the next item to be pulled out.
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From the dictionary.
Queue: a list of data items, commands, etc., stored so as to be retrievable in a definite order, usually the order of insertion.
note the term "Usually", not "always".
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not necessarily 'work completed in order'
That's exactly what a queue means, not just in every day life, but specifically in computer science.
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