Java lock contention anti-patterns and their associated recommendations

Locks play a crucial role in Java-based multithreaded applications, offering an effective solution for synchronizing shared resources. Yet, mishandling locks and threads can result in contention, leading to performance deterioration and compromising the scalability of Java applications. After conducting a background study from various sources, we have identified and defined eight Java lock contention anti-patterns and their associated recommendations and refactored Java code. These anti-patterns comprehensively represent the diverse scenarios of lock contention within Java intrinsic locks. The recommendations of the anti-patterns were validated by demonstrating that they improved the average hold time, spin counts, and lock acquisitions, run-time performance metrics between the original and refactored code as suggested by the recommendation.