class initialization check overhead

[Jeff Sturm]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2002, Boehm, Hans wrote:
> We need to be careful about memory ordering issues in this code.  On
> current X86 processors it's probably OK.  On Itanium the test needs to
> involve an aquire load.  On some some other architectures a barrier is
> needed to ensure that loads following the test really can't see the
> preinitialization values.

Would declaring the test variable with java volatile be sufficient?
(Assuming "volatile" is actually implemented?)

Jeff