# Crossbeam: support for concurrent and parallel programming
[](https://travis-ci.org/aturon/crossbeam)
This crate is an early work in progress. The focus for the moment is
concurrency:
- **Non-blocking data structures**. These data structures allow for high
performance, highly-concurrent access, much superior to wrapping with a
`Mutex`. Ultimately the goal is to include stacks, queues, deques, bags, sets
and maps.
- **Memory management**. Because non-blocking data structures avoid global
synchronization, it is not easy to tell when internal data can be safely
freed. The `mem` module provides generic, easy to use, and high-performance APIs
for managing memory in these cases.
- **Synchronization**. The standard library provides a few synchronization
primitives (locks, semaphores, barriers, etc) but this crate seeks to expand
that set to include more advanced/niche primitives, as well as userspace
alternatives.
- **Scoped thread API**. Finally, the crate provides a "scoped" thread API,
making it possible to spawn threads that share stack data with their parents.
# Usage
To use Crossbeam, add this to your `Cargo.toml`:
```toml
[dependencies]
crossbeam = "0.1.5"
```
For examples of what Crossbeam is capable of, see the
[documentation][docs].
[docs]: http://aturon.github.io/crossbeam-doc/crossbeam/