I think the style guides I’ve seen only permit acquire/release memory orders for locks, and relaxed for simple counters. Anything more complicated including lockless hashtables or RCU, using seq_cst is required by the style guide.
The restriction is a good thing because there are very few humans who can reason about acquire/release semantics in situations other than locks.
The restriction is a good thing because there are very few humans who can reason about acquire/release semantics in situations other than locks.