Multithreaded Programming With PThreads - Softcover

Lewis, Bil; Berg, Daniel J.; Sun Microsystems Press

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0136807291 ISBN 13: 9780136807292

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 1997

Synopsis

For advanced Computer Science programming courses covering operating systems.

The books aim is to give the programmer a solid, basic understanding of threads ― what they are, how they work, why they work, why they are useful, and some of the programming issues surrounding their use. A reader should come away with a solid understanding of the fundamentals of multithreading, being able to write credible, modestly complex, threaded programs.

About this title

About the Author

BIL LEWIS, formerly with Sun Microsystems, Inc., now consults and teaches multithreaded programming. He is the co-author of Threads Primer: A Guide to Multithreaded Programming (Sun Microsystems Press/Prentice Hall). DANIEL J. BERG is the Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems U.S. Reseller Channel. Mr. Berg has published papers and several books on Sun technologies, including Threads Primer (with Bil Lewis) and Advanced Techniques for Java Developers (Wiley).

From the Back Cover

68072-8

Based on the best-selling Threads Primer, Multithreaded Programming with Pthreads gives you a solid understanding of Posix threads: what they are, how they work, when to use them, and how to optimize them.

It retains the clarity and humor of the Primer, but includes expanded comparisons to Win32 and OS/2 implementations. Code examples tested on all of the major UNIX platforms are featured along with detailed explanations of how and why they use threads.

In addition to scheduling, synchronization, signal handling, etc., special emphasis is placed on:

• Cancellation: What does it mean to do bounded-time cancellation? What are the numerous details the programmer must deal with, and how do you avoid using cancellation at all?
• Error expeditions: What do they all mean and what should you do about them?
• Performance: How fast can a program run, and what are the limiting factors? Theoretical issues are considered and a case study for NFS is presented.
• Hardware: A number of machine designs are examined (Sun, SGI, and DEC), focusing on issues of performance, synchronization instructions, bus design, and invalidation techniques.
• Languages: The use of threads in other languages (Lisp, Eiffel, Smalltalk, etc.) is examined, with special emphasis on C++ and Java.
• References: Pointers to the newsgroup, FAQs, web pages, code examples, other books, freeware tools, and commercial products are included.
• More than anything else this is a practical book-it tells you what can and cannot be done with threads and why. In short, everything you need to know to build faster, smarter, multithreaded applications.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0136807291
• ISBN 13: 9780136807292
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432