Covers Java 1.1. It is an excellent introduction for someone with little
experience managing threads.
This book assumes you are a Java programmer who is comfortable with I/O
and minimally "network aware," in the sense that
you don't really
need to be told what a socket is for (although the authors do
remind you).
The first 100 pages define the problems threaded code creates, illustrate
how Java provides facilities for coping with these problems, and flesh out
two fairly realistic
examples (a TCP/IP server class and an asynchronous I/O class)
that illustrate the concepts.
The initial discussion of Java's facilities is beautifully developed,
step by step, so that a novice can
understand what the problems are and how they are being solved. The
examples discuss only the threading issues,
and are as clear as anyone
can make them. (I'm not sure I would use either example in real code,
for reasons unrelated to threading.)
The next 100 pages go into detail about more advanced techniques, such as
implementing scheduling policies.
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