DSTM in C

Today I started with implementing DSTM in C. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem so difficult. But a really brilliant student tried that before me and faced some problems. Thus I am trying to be really careful about it and do things carefully.

What I did today basically was re-read the paper, focusing on the data-structures used. I drew a diagram on my whtieboard of the whole thing (I hope no one erases it :) ), then I went through the Java DSTM code.

The question is, should I do a direct translation, or just re-implement DSTM with the help of the Java code?

If I translate, I have to figure out how to translate exceptions and things like constructors. If I re-implementing it, I could be reinventing the wheel and might fall into problems which the guys that implemented DSTM have already encountered and solved.

I have a feeling my approach is gonna be a mix of both. I need a better understanding of pthreads though. But I am planning on having this implementation be independant of what kind of threading is used (forks, pthreads or whatever it is that MS does....).